AndyDursin wrote:One thing the R rated version won't fix: Timothy Olyphant. Every review I've read mentions that he's a horribly bland villain and the movie's biggest problem.

Which is why I also have no hopes for that Hitman movie they're making with him as the Hitman! That should have been Jason Statham!

Maybe this Die Hard movie will be better on video with Director's Cuts then the way this is starting to shape up at present.

Eric W. wrote:Maybe this Die Hard movie will be better on video with Director's Cuts then the way this is starting to shape up at present.

Yeah, but putting back f-bombs isn't going to help overcome things like Olyphant's performance, if it's that bland.

If the actual movie was GOOD, it would work as a PG-13, even if the edits were obvious. Restoring things like a few shots of gore and profanity is only going to help so much if the film is riddled with issues to begin with. It's not like they're removing 10 minutes of plot.

Ah, this is great...

AndyDursin wrote:

Eric W. wrote:Maybe this Die Hard movie will be better on video with Director's Cuts then the way this is starting to shape up at present.

Yeah, but putting back f-bombs isn't going to help overcome things like Olyphant's performance, if it's that bland.

If the actual movie was GOOD, it would work as a PG-13, even if the edits were obvious. Restoring things like a few shots of gore and profanity is only going to help so much if the film is riddled with issues to begin with. It's not like they're removing 10 minutes of plot.

I agree. I don't see why so many people are hanging their hats on this rating thing. Some people even refuse to see it just because it isn't an R film? C'mon now.

It's either a good movie or it isn't. Heck, less F-bombs and less gory violence is actually not a bad thing to me.

Whoa...88% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, there are only, like, eight reviews up, but that's still a far better critical reception than I ever would have imagined.

In their review, Variety mentioned the film was "tailored" for a PG-13. Cuts or no cuts, they made no mention that it had been edited down, if it, in fact, had.

Might be worth a look!!

Monterey Jack wrote:Whoa...88% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, there are only, like, eight reviews up, but that's still a far better critical reception than I ever would have imagined.

Hey, wait a second -- aren't you the guy who said they were boycotting this movie because it had a PG-13???

FWIW all the reviews seem to be positive, and overwhelmingly so. Check this out from the Hollywood Reporter:

Bottom Line: The kick-ass spirit of the old "Die Hard" series gets a terrific contempo revival...Arriving with heavy marketing via outdoor ads and TV spots, this fourth "Die Hard" will light up the pre-July Fourth weekend and continue for many weeks more. Its broad appeal should make this one of summer's most certain hits.

Sure sounds good to me after the summer we've had so far!

just came from the opening day here... and what can I say? I LOOOOOOVED IT! What a blast!

On the one side it was in fact a DIE HARD movie, with the overall storyline, but on the other hand, it had no DH feel or atmosphere at all... which you may hate or not. It was very funny actually and could have been a whatever-franchise-actionmovie. But the connection to the previous ones was not as forced as in Part 3.
The movie was totally over the top and didnt take itself seriously at all. Especially when the truck goes up the bridge (you know what I mean when you see it), prepare for some scenes of SPEED's Bus-jumping-the bridge-caliber.

The action was not violent to begin with, so I guess, the cuts were really just for F-words... there is only one gangster getting shredded, but this is still nothing to do very bloody. Rest is quite gore-free, but I have to say, the F-Words were all intact in the German version, so we definitely have a different version than you guys (though probably only slightly).

You can notice that they had a hectic post-production, here and there some more explanation of what is going in on, i.e. better editing to clarify what you see and what characters do... but overall the movie was fast and fun and didnt want to be any more than that. I loved it, it starts big, has inventive ideas (the flipping car is amazing everytime I see it, the whole sequence is marvellous) and gets bigger and bigger... they actually didnt show all the action set pieces in the trailer, so look forward to some elevator fun... hilarious idea!

Len Wiseman is my man!!! Thank God Michael Bay passed on this one!
Hope this is as succesfull as it deserves! Would say it should make at least around 150 million!

Go see it on the big screen! But dont expect Art and dont expect a serious DIE HARD 1 thing...

Kenneth (If you hated TITANIC, sit next to me) Turan in the LA Times actually liked it-I think much more than the last one. And I don't see why some people are beating up on Justin Long. Annoying? The Apple vs. PC guy? Evidently you've never seen Dane Cook. . .or Kate Bosworth. . .or Maria Pitillo. . .or Josh Hartnett. . .or that kid from THE LEGEND OF ZORRO. . .now THOSE are annoying actors.

Well THAT is what a summer movie is supposed to be.

I agree for the most part with Roman -- the film is good fun, evoking the spirit and tone of the earlier films in Willis' laid back performance (the kind we sadly haven't seen much of in his "Shayalaman years"), down to Beltrami's Kamen-esque score. Wiseman drained the color out of most of it, but he nailed the action sequences dead on. Justin Long is alright, Olyphant was alright -- it's obvious they saved the budget on the casting as there's almost nobody of note supporting Willis (hey, a Kevin Smith cameo!), but it ends up working better than you might've thought.

Overall, it is not on the level of DIE HARD or DIE HARD 2 -- the movie really doesn't generate a whole lot of suspense or a sense of danger at all -- but it is in fact much, much better than DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (which I disliked...with a vengeance!), and easily the only summer movie I've watched this year that I wouldn't mind seeing again.

So it gets my vote of confidence right there

exactly!!!

I like Olyphant, but ok, his part wasn't anything special and they even degraded Maggie Q to some by the numbers bitch, on the one side I missed some real showdown between Olyphant and Willis, but on the other hand they didnt have one with Gruber in Part 1 or 3 (just recently saw the copter thing from Part 3... my good is that lousy filmmaking... you hardly understand what is going on, I can't understand why nobody seems to mind that horrible ending...).

A friend of mine hated Part 4, but just don't take it seriously and expect a serious DIE HARD movie, it is just fun and doesnt want to be more. I agree with Andy, that it is one of the few summer movies I would have no problem with seeing again.

(just recently saw the copter thing from Part 3... my good is that lousy filmmaking... you hardly understand what is going on, I can't understand why nobody seems to mind that horrible ending...).

Well, I minded it from the time I saw it at a preview screening. That entire movie is just plain lousy, from tepid action scenes to the huge disappointment involving Irons' villainy -- I thought he would have compared with Rickman's performance but, like the whole movie, he was just plain lazy.

And I'll never forget the 15 minute scene where he and his group unload the gold (or whatever was going on)...people were talking outloud and getting up during it!

Plus, WAV has some of the worst visual effects of any big-budget action movie of the last 15 years. That boat explosion towards the end of the picture? Horrendous (not to mention the unintentionally funny shot of Willis and Jackson flying towards the camera like Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon). The green-screen work on that film is shameful, and even McTiernan's usually elegant direction was all over the map, with Bourne Supremacy/Batman Begins-style seizure-cam action sequences. There are some good bits studded through the movie (I especially liked the scene with McClane outwitting five bad guys in an elevator), but WAV is a pretty crushing disappointment compared to the first two films, so LFODH can only be an improvement, pussy PG-13 rating or not.

Monterey Jack wrote:Plus, WAV has some of the worst visual effects of any big-budget action movie of the last 15 years. That boat explosion towards the end of the picture? Horrendous (not to mention the unintentionally funny shot of Willis and Jackson flying towards the camera like Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon). The green-screen work on that film is shameful, and even McTiernan's usually elegant direction was all over the map, with Bourne Supremacy/Batman Begins-style seizure-cam action sequences. There are some good bits studded through the movie (I especially liked the scene with McClane outwitting five bad guys in an elevator), but WAV is a pretty crushing disappointment compared to the first two films, so LFODH can only be an improvement, pussy PG-13 rating or not.

Agreed on all that. WITH A VENGEANCE is weird because it was basically a "Cinergi" (Andy Vajna, one of the Carolco guys) production that Fox only released in the U.S.; it was a Buena Vista release in a lot of places overseas. For those reasons it was sort of an "independent film" that just didn't have the same production values as the first two movies despite its budget, and I felt the NC location shooting was just too obvious in its stand-in for NYC...the movie didn't feel "authentic" at all, and I agree, it was not well-directed by McTiernan either.

The ending was obviously very rushed. Trevor (Carlson), back when he posted on this board, noted they were thinking of shooting DIE HARD 3 & 4 back to back and the original ending of 3 was supposed to have Irons get away as a lead in for the next sequel. I'm not sure how accurate that is as I've never read it anywhere else, but it DOES at least feel that way, like it was a throwaway, last-minute addition. (That alternate ending on the DVD is an absolute disaster).

What I liked about LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD is that it very much captures the FEEL of the first two movies. Some of it is forced but they got the "personality" of those films on-target in its sense of humor. It is an exciting but very much ESCAPIST kind of action film -- not a broad cartoon but not intended to be taken overly seriously either. And not all of it works, but it IS fun, and it's better than any of the "third act" sequels we've seen this summer by a wide margin.

After seeing it, I also would not say the film was cut down necessarily for a PG-13 either. From the casting of Justin Long and Mary Elizabeth Winsted as McClane's daughter, I felt they really were trying to target younger viewers with this film, and frankly after seeing how the film worked I have no problem with it.

There were a couple of scenes where you could tell profanity had been looped, but you know what? The audience was laughing at the joke anyway, so I doubt they really were missing anything other than some f-bombs. I'm looking forward to seeing the Uncut version, but I doubt it's a different movie outside of profanity. It does not seem to be any more violent than, say, TRUE LIES was.

oh my the ship explosion in WAV... 2 shots!!! 2 shots of a whole ship exploding, which was basically the climax of the finale! and they only got 2 shots for that???? ridiculous.

and the shaky cam... if you pay close attention to it, you notice how lousy that was handled. Sometimes the cameraman just wipes the camera to left and right with no reason at all... maybe he ran into something...

WAV was so clearly done just because McT and Willis needed a hit, but nobody really wanted to do it. I really dont know why so many people like it...

Kamen said in an interview he never met McT on it and they were actually shooting the copter showdown 4 weeks before the movie opened.

They also moved the rec sessions to Seattle, so suddenly a lot of his orchestrators were not allowed to work on a non union recorded score and had to quit, so that was another reason why he had to reuse so much of his previous scores...

everything is just a mess...

LFODH is really art compared to that... well, what can I say, I loved it... you go, Lennie!!!