Rated PG-13 Read Rating Note below.

Directed by Len Wiseman (The guy who directs monster movies that aren’t scary; Underworld)

Written by Roderick Thorpe (Creator, he wrote the book Die Hard was based on “Nothing Lasts Forever” It’s not a bad read) David Marconi & Mark Bomback wrote the story, Mark Bomback wrote the screenplay & it was inspired by an article entitled Farewell to arms by John Carlin (I gotta track that down)

Starring Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Maggie Q, Timothy Oliphant, & Kevin Smith (Yeah, that’s Kevin Smith, I was like WTF? No way? But yeah, it’s him. More on that later.)

Rating Note: That’s right, I said PG-13. Yeah, I know the other three movies in the series are R rated, but they decided to tone this one down to make it PG-13. Don’t worry though; they only cut back on the language, not the violence. Yeah, I know that John McClane’s catch phrase is “Yippee Ki Yay Mother F_ ker.” Ironically, I bet Al will censor that & that phrase is naughty enough to get you an R rating. Well, you get to hear all of it except for the naughtiest part. F_cker get’s drowned out by gunshots & they don’t show his face so that you can’t make out exactly what he’s saying. It could be product placement for that big mother trucker’s game from a few years back for all we know. It just goes to show you that South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut was right, the MPAA doesn’t care how much horrible gruesome violence is in a film as long as you don’t use any naughty language. F_ck the MPAA. F_ck ‘em hard & f_ck ‘em dry. We don’t really need them anymore anyway. I heard the word F_ck 3 times on my way to the theatre, (okay, once was out of me, but still), if I can hear it in the theatre, why not in the film itself?

June 27th! I had to wait until June 27th until I saw the first Blockbuster of the summer! WTF Hollywood!?!?! Sony kicked off Blockbuster season early on may 5th & NOW is when I see the first Blockbuster? Maybe I’m jaded but so far this summer all of the “blockbusters” have been lackluster. Sequels to blockbusters are supposed to be bigger, better & more badass than the originals. The only thing I’ve seen that came close to it was the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, but to be honest, I didn’t consider the first FF movie a blockbuster; it was just a cool flick. (Go ahead, send me your hate mail, it will only make me stronger, Bwaah ha ha ha! Seriously, I’m working on an article about the FF; you’ll get it when it’s done.) Anyway, the blockbusters this year have been pretty lean, so I decided to not review anything until I saw an actual Blockbuster. I took the, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything” route. I saw Live Free or Die Hard last night, & now I’m back. Al, give John McClane & company a whole box of doughnuts & a bigass thermos of coffee on me. They have f_cking well earned it! The movie blew me away.

What can I say; the action was edge of your seat, white knuckle $hit. It was so good that I had to take a leak 10 minutes into the film & I decided to hold it all the way until the very end. I didn’t want to miss a frame of it. In fact had the movie been ten minutes longer I was ready to piss myself & walk out the theatre exit directly into the rain & get soaked so no one would notice. (I defy any critic anywhere to show that much dedication to his craft.)

Everyone who plans on ever releasing blockbusters, watch this movie & pay attention. That includes everyone who has fallen short so far this summer. Star power alone does not make a blockbuster. If it did, Ocean’s 13 wouldn’t have lost the number one at the box office spot until Ocean’s 14 comes out in 2009. To be a blockbuster, you have to give the people what they want, in the manner they’ve come to expect it, & then, not only give us more of what we want, give us more of what we don’t even know we want. You need to raise the bar that made it good in the first place (See the Lethal Weapon & Die Hard franchises, oh wait, chances are you have.)

The directing was top notch, but I always liked Wiseman’s action. His films so far have been full of monsters, short on horror, but high in action. So when I saw his name I had no doubts at all about the action.

As to the acting Bruce Willis proves that you can’t keep a good a$$hole down forever. He plays John McClane as though the last time he played him was last week, not 1995. Welcome back Mr. McClane, We’ve saved up quite a few asses for you to kick over the years, have fun & thank you Bruce, for bringing this a$$hole back when we’ve needed him the most.

Justin Long does a great job, Him & Bruce play off each other so well, it reminds me of Anthony Anderson & Tom Arnold or even Jason Mewes & Kevin Smith. I’m not sure if it’s chemistry, but whatever it is I hope to see them make more movies together.

Lucy McClane is played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, in fact, she plays her so well that you’d think they were trying to prove that a$$holiness is a genetic trait; I almost didn’t recognize her from Grindhouse.

Maggie Q’s fight scene is by far the most painful I’ve seen since Fight Club. There have been harsher fight scenes since then, but they didn’t make me wince. Maggie Q sold me the fight, I actually felt uncomfortable watching it. The lady can take it as well as she dishes it out. (Yeah, I know it wasn’t real, but neither is wrestling. It still looked killer.

Timothy Olyphant plays Thomas Gabriel, the villain, & I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here because I’m familiar with his work. But let’s face facts folks all of the die hard villains have been overshadowed by Alan Rickman/Hans Gruber. Those are big shoes to fill. I didn’t hate Timothy as much as I hated Hans, & I really tried Tim, I really did. It’s not his fault though, he gave a great performance. I would imagine it’s like trying to find someone to fill William Shatner’s shoes as Captain James T. Kirk, whoever you get will be overshadowed because certain shoes can’t be filled in the public eye. That’s a fact you just gotta accept, do your best & try to power through.

Finally Kevin Smith is in this film. I do like Kevin Smith. I think he’s a funny cat & a talented writer/director. I didn’t know he could act. Okay, I’m not sure how much was acting, this role wasn’t a stretch for him, he plays a geeky hacker who’s a big Star Wars fan. So, y’know it wasn’t that hard for him, but still he made a fine addition to the cast. In fact if Willis & Long ever do make another film together, I’d like to see Mr. Smith direct it.

All in all, this movie kicks ass from beginning to end & it’s gonna be hard to beat. I would bet on it against any other blockbuster this summer. Go see it so you can judge for yourself what all the lackluster blockbusters of summer ‘07 are missing.

One last thing, this is a special announcement. From now on when I see a preview at the movies that reveals too much, I’m just going to review the preview as though I had seen the movie. It’ll save me time & money. I’m tired of this BS where they show me the best parts in the previews & then having to sit through ninety minutes or so of a film that I feel like I’ve already seen. So thank you studios, I’ll be saving lots of money now.

I was gonna see the Game Plan, but then I saw the rest of the trailer, now I don’t have to. I give the preview 3 doughnuts. The Rock seems to do his usual surprisingly good job in another comedic role. The guy has a talent for comedy. Rosalyn Sanchez looks even hotter than usual. The preview actually looks funny and since the film is by Disney, we all know how it ends already. This preview is showing with Live Free or Die Hard and I just saved you about $8.50

I also saw too much of The Brave One starring Jody Foster as the Punisher. I give this one 4 doughnuts. It starts off like a cool but messed up preview, then they start showing you more, & then More & then too much, & then too much more & then they show you the logical conclusion of all previous things they’ve shown. A definite money saver. Jodie Foster, Naveem Andrews, & Terrence Howard do a great job as the characters, if there was an Oscar for previews that go on to give out so much of the story that you no longer have to see the movie because you know pretty much have seen the climax of it, they would totally win it. This trailer is playing with Live Free or Die Hard at AMC theatres. Go check it out now before they charge you to see the long version.