Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

#101 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:49 pm

Monterey Jack wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:44 pm
therewillbeblus wrote:
Sun Oct 25, 2020 8:29 pm

That is Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who by being referred to as "the girl" reminds me of the injustice of her career trajectory. She should have become a star everyone knows by name.
I've been smitten with Winstead since the '07 twofer of Life Free Or Die Hard and Death Proof. A gorgeous, charming and talented actress who would have become a major star had she been around a decade earlier (before franchises took over Hollywood). She sparkles in Scott Pilgrim.
One reason Scott Pilgrim gets better over time for me is to view Winstead from a future context. I was attracted to her personality when I saw it in theatres, but having 'watched her grow' over the years since, and returning to that younger person as a seed of potential that would come to actualize in a variety of different fully-formed personalities, is like a nostalgia trip to a memory from the beginning of a relationship; where you detected an enigmatic attractive quality in another that you felt could change your life for the better. That idea functions perfectly for the film, as drunk romantic blindness and personal significance that may be artificially de-purified through biased memory but remains a sober subjective reality that you can't shake.
Last edited by therewillbeblus on Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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Re: Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

#102 Post by domino harvey » Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:53 pm

I think the movie still reflects the original ending and Knives Chau comes off better. We’re really digressing here though!

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cdnchris
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Re: Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

#103 Post by cdnchris » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:43 pm

I revisited this one not that long ago, and I liked it more than I did initially, though maybe because the last one was so godawful I had no choice but to acknowledge some level of skill went into this. Plus Willis at least looks like he's invested in the film.

Still, I really think Olyphant (as much as I like him as an actor and enjoy seeing him pop up in stuff) is a weak villain, and for me films like this hinge on how strong the villain and their plan is. Other factors can help, and the buddy aspect of the heroes can overcome those other shortcomings, like the first Lethal Weapon, but Long and Willis don't really do it for me.

Having said all that,
SpoilerShow
McClane shooting himself in order to shoot the bad guy
is a pretty bad-ass John McClane thing to do, and that at least made the film more memorable to me than the fifth, which I'm really trying to recall now and having no luck.

EDIT: and I just recalled Jai Courtney is in the fifth film, so yeah, that's reason enough for me to dismiss it.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

#104 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:53 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:53 pm
We’re really digressing here though!
This digression has been part of a secret mission to create a Mary Elizabeth Winstead threadsplit.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

#105 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:56 pm

cdnchris wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:43 pm
that at least made the film more memorable to me than the fifth, which I'm really trying to recall now and having no luck.
therewillbeblus wrote:
Sun Oct 25, 2020 6:37 pm
I recently bought the blu-ray set and am dreading a revisit of the fifth, but feel obligated since I remember absolutely nothing about it- just that I didn't like it at all
This film really seems to have an MiB amnesia effect

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John Cope
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Re: Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

#106 Post by John Cope » Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:24 pm

I actually kind of enjoyed Die Hard 5. It's by no means great, of course, and pales next to the original but it's still better than its rancid rep. Some of the action is pretty well handled but what's most interesting about it is the whole father-son angle. This was something I expected to feel totally artificial and forced in as such things usually are but what's pleasing here is that somebody had the wisdom/insight to grasp that everything is "artificial" anyway and run with that. What that results in is an especially casual sort of action picture in which all of Moscow somehow feels smaller than the building in the original film. Beyond that though, and unlike just about any other movie of this sort I can recall, the father-son stuff is actually allowed to be the frame through which everything else is processed. That results in the entire thing seeming like one big extended bonding weekend via lessons in graphic carnage. The relationship between Willis and Jai Courtney is also nice and relaxed which helps.

Was thinking too that though there's always an assumption about how tired franchises get by the second or third sequel I really wonder if that's the real issue. I mean, if McTiernan came back for a big extravagant Die Hard send off with the full intention of putting the same level of artistry to work as we see in that first film would it matter? I kind of suspect not as what may really kill these things isn't some set-in-stone law of diminishing returns but rather the fact that studio support just wouldn't be there. And it wouldn't be there because there may just be an implicit (and possibly correct) assumption that the lead has aged out of viability. I realize there's always The Expendables to prove this wrong but that stuff, as much as I've enjoyed it, seems almost like fetish product to me, or at least a niche gimmick. But then again at this point I'd really rather see what's going on with David Addison thirty years later than John McClane.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

#107 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Oct 27, 2020 8:16 pm

I'm not on the bandwagon of thinking they're great films by any means, but I feel like Fast and the Furious did put a lot of effort into revamping some of the middle sequels (~#5, I think?) with some successful genre-dipping, and not just bombastic autopilot setpieces. Not that I think any are on the level Vin Diesel does every time the Oscars and coming up and he is somehow disappointed, but that's an example of a franchise that could have pushed out the same product drained of slightly more juice each outing til the well dried up, that chose to go the other route for a while. Also, it's not exactly the same thing, but the Bond series has put heart into quality a few times over the decades.

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colinr0380
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Re: Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

#108 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Oct 28, 2020 5:09 am

I sometimes like to think that Cold Light of Day film which Bruce Willis was in the year before A Good Day To Die Hard would have made a good capstone to the Die Hard series. That's the film where Willis is teasingly billed as the lead but gets pretty quickly killed off (by Sigourney Weaver's duplicitous CIA agent, no less!) and family kidnapped to leave Henry Cavill as his son bewildered and alone in the middle of Spain, trying to figure out the language and get revenge! That would have been a better arc for a son character for McClane than just "John McClane The Younger" in A Good Day To Die Hard.


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