Review for Die Hard 4.0: Ultimate Action Edition (2 discs)

Introduction

"The version that ought to have been released in the first place!"

That epithet is one that passes my lips on a regular basis these days, and has done for quite a while. It's why I hardly go to the cinema any more, and why I really despise the modern Hollywood feature film. The need for ever-increasing box office, combined with the MPAA's bizarre criteria for rating movies, has combined to neuter the summer blockbuster. There's no point in going to watch an action or a horror movie anymore. Cinemas get smaller, ticket prices increase, yet seats must be filled, so to attract as broad an audience as possible, studios chase a PG-13 rating, instead of accepting the appropriate R rated kiss of death. It's why sex is practically a no-no, or participants have to remain clothed through the process, while violence can be violent, but not too violent, and definitely no gore. And no potty mouths! Typically, in the UK where content and context is more important to ratings than content alone, the BBFC would issue a 15 certificate either way.


The end result is that I enjoyed the DVD release of Daredevil Director's Cut, whereas the theatrical cut stank, and Chronicles of Riddick is a good movie in its 'un-rated' form, while the theatrical cut deservedly killed the franchise. So when Die Hard 4.0 was announced, I knew I wasn't going to watch it in the cinema. The first three Die Hard films are brilliant, entertaining, edge of the seat action flicks, featuring the most memorable, and profane action hero in modern cinema. They are full of brutal, visceral action, great stunts, and they never let up. The sheer claustrophobia of Die Hard, the perfectly paced action of Die Hard 2, the adrenaline pumping race against time of Die Hard With A Vengeance, all brought something different to the franchise, and all deserved the plaudits and acclaim they earned. Live Free or Die Hard, or Die Hard 4.0 as it is known in the UK brought computer geek villains and a PG-13 rating. It used to be that when the Die Hard movies got to TV, you'd be looking forward to the "Yippie-Ki-Yay Muddy Funster" moments. Now you can get them in the cinema instead. I did what I so often do nowadays, I waited for the 'un-rated' DVD, which would have the violence and the profanity restored. Except that it turns out that Die Hard 4.0 was a compromise from the moment that filming began. Alternate takes existed with added profanity, but not so much with the violence, and even the swears weren't all that prevalent. Die Hard 4.0: Ultimate Action Edition isn't just a matter of editing back in all that was cut out. It means additional ADR work, and it means going to work with a CGI paintbrush and a bucket of blood red pixels.


It was supposed to be a simple assignment, go and pick up a young hacker named Matthew Farrell, and transfer him to Washington, where the FBI wanted to ask him a few questions. But for John McClane, it was going to be one of 'those' days. He didn't know that the FBI computers had just been hacked by terrorists, and that was just the first wave of an all out attack on the US infrastructure. Thomas Gabriel has a point to make, and he began by gathering all the talented hackers, using their abilities to create a whole host of digital weapons. Of course the first thing to do after that is to get rid of the evidence, which is why hackers are suddenly turning up dead all over, and why as Detective John McClane turns up at the door of Matthew Farrell, there's a bomb about to go off inside, and there are a bunch of French mercenaries outside ready to finish the job if the bomb doesn't work. Gabriel may be in the process of launching the most audacious terrorist attack on US soil ever, but he's done far worse than that, he's p***ed off John McClane.

Picture

Die Hard 4.0 gets a 2.40:1 anamorphic transfer that is hard to fault. It's clear, it's sharp, the colours come through strongly, and quite obviously there is no incidence of print damage on such a recent film. If I do have an observation, it's that it does seem excessively sharp at times, although I couldn't see any edge enhancement. It's still a little odd to notice aliasing on Bruce Willis' head. Unfortunately, the Ultimate Action Edition is a DVD only release at this time. No Blu-ray for the sweary version. The CGI augmented action comes across as well as any other summer blockbuster, although this Die Hard has a darker, more industrial look to it compared to the first three instalments. This Ultimate Action edition has had the gore content increased with the aid of some CGI blood splatter for the bullet hits. Remember the pink Klingon blood from Star Trek VI? This looks more fake…

Sound

You have a choice between DD 5.1 and DTS English, and by golly does the film sound good. Lots of crash, bang and wallop to appreciate, the dialogue is clear throughout, and while Marco Beltrami's music is somewhat more visceral as befits an action movie, there are touches of Michael Kamen's iconic score within to keep the continuity alive. This is the mega sweary version, but it turns out that not too many alternate scenes were shot with profanity. In fact there are only a few occasions where you can actually see the actors swear. Otherwise there is a whole lot of ADR, mostly when the camera has panned away from the actors' mouths, occasionally there is some dodgy looking lip sync, and while we do hear Bruce say his iconic catchphrase, we don't see him say it. English Hard of Hearing subtitles are here should you need them, and you will need them. The French dialogue in the film lacks on screen captions, and if you want to understand what the mercenaries are saying, you'll be flicking the subtitle stream on and off.

Extras

This 2-disc edition is the Ultimate Action Edition. Go for the single disc release if you want the theatrical cut. The 2-discs come in a hinged panel, Amaray case, with a card slipcover.

Disc 1 starts off with a 'You wouldn't fondle a monarch' anti-piracy ad.

You get 4 deleted/extended scenes, running to a total of 3½ minutes, and adding nothing whatsoever to the film.

Music Video: Die Hard by Guyz Nite - 4½ minutes - Oh dear God!
Behind the Scenes with Guyz Nite - 6 minutes - There's more of this s***!?

The only thing, the sole thing worth a damn on this first disc is the 8-minute Gag Reel, which is passingly funny.

The single disc version has an audio commentary. This version does not.


Disc 2 contains all the good stuff…

… beginning with Analog Hero in a Digital World: Making of Die Hard 4.0. This is a feature length making of documentary, running to 96 minutes. There are 10 mini-featurettes, with a useful Play All option, and the cast and crew speak about all aspects of the film's production. There is the usual EPK back-slappiness to deal with, but there is also a lot of useful information as well.

Yippie-Ki-Yay Mother F*****! lasts 22 minutes, and sees Kevin Smith and Bruce Willis having a frank chat about the movie, and bits and pieces beyond. It's an interesting featurette because of its candid nature, and well worth watching. That said, it is pretty close to the film, there certainly hasn't been the distance for a critical appraisal, so while Bruce is down, maybe unfairly so on the first two sequels, he's full of nothing but praise for the fourth film.

FOX MOVIE CHANNEL presents "FOX LEGACY" lasts 6 minutes. And it's amazing how annoying capital letters can appear on a DVD menu. It's just some guy waxing lyrical about the Die Hard movies. It's like one of those straight to camera, friendly chat trailers from the fifties and sixties.


Hacker Underworld lasts 9 minutes, and is a brief, uninformative chat about hackers from the side of the hacker, or one particular hacker who gets interviewed here.

Homeland Security In A Cyber Age lasts 10 minutes and is the reverse of the previous featurette, with a bunch of suits talking about hacking from the security side of things. It's a chance for them to really scare the s*** out of you.

Finally Matt's Pad With Justin Long lasts 7 minutes, and is a guided tour of the set, courtesy of the actor.

Disc 2 comes with countless subtitle languages should you need them.

Conclusion

Well, let's get this out of the way first… This isn't the version that should have been released in the first place. Mind you, neither is the theatrical version. What would have been ideal is if they had made a decent Die Hard movie, as while this film is many things, and while it does have John McClane as a central character, to me it's not a Die Hard movie. It's really just another, by the numbers, summer blockbuster, an over the top action thriller, with Hollywood's typical arse-backwards view of computers and computer hacking. It's not as bad as the Terminatrix hacking into police cars, and having them drive themselves in Terminator 3, but it's pretty close. In this film, hackers will get computers to do a thousand impossible things, and have the time to spare to create flashy, over the top, memory intensive GUIs for their hardware that would probably make your home PC shudder to a halt.


Unlike the average modern action movie, many of the stunts and action sequences are accomplished for real, or with the aid of carefully designed sets, stunts or miniatures. But there is always a CGI polish applied, and consequently the action still seems more and more far-fetched and cartoon-like. I'd never have though that I would have been praising the first three Die Hard movies for their gritty realism, but compared to Die Hard 4.0, they offer practically absolute plausibility. That is despite each of those films having far-fetched moments. The fire-hose leap in Die Hard didn't even make me blink. The ejector seat moment in Die Hard 2 was good for a laugh, and while the uber-explosion at the end of Die Hard 3 may have been completely over the top, it was only the truck surfing moment that elicited a WTF exclamation from me. Die Hard 4.0 is a litany of WTF, whether it's the number of people, McClane included, who get run over by big arse SUVs, and get by with barely a scratch, ramming a helicopter with a police car, and the ultimate disbelief hammer, surfing on the back of an F35. I'd stopped counting at that point. Die Hard introduced the idea of an ordinary man, in the wrong place at the wrong time, forced to behave extraordinarily. Die Hard 4.0 kills that off, giving us a McClane that is superhuman. I half expected him to head-butt bullets out of the air.


Another weak point in this film is the roster of villainy. If the peak of the villains were the Gruber brothers, then the nadir would have been Colonel Bland from Die Hard 2. Yet he's a charismatic tyrannosaur compared to these evil geeks. Sweaty, nerdy, speccy types never make good villains, just good cannon fodder, and so it is that Thomas Gabriel has his henchpeople. Kung-fu girlfriend Mai gives good fight sequence, but in terms of personality is still waiting for it to be delivered as she falls to her doom. Ironically, she's the toughest physical opponent that McClane faces in this film. The French mercenaries take the roles of the heavies in this film, armed and ready to kick arse. But they are French, and without any English dialogue from them, you don't get to relate to their evilness, or at least I didn't. That leaves the head villain himself, Gabriel, who spends the film sighing a lot and looking bored. Couldn't they bring back Alan Rickman, say he was his own long lost twin brother or something? For an interesting take on Hollywood computer logic, and an army of caffeine drink fuelled nerds, Enemy of the State is a much better executed tech thriller.


I watched Die Hard 4.0 when it was broadcast on television, and I felt that something was missing. I did think at the time that it was the profanity and violence; after all, you can't have a Die Hard movie without a clearly enunciated 'Yippie-Ki-Yay Mother f***er'. Having seen the Ultimate Action Edition, I see that I was wrong. The blood and profanity may not have been edited back in all that skilfully, indeed some of the swearing seems positively childish and out of place in some scenes, but that's not what makes a Die Hard film. It's character, and it's story. Jumping on the computer crime bandwagon, something that Hollywood is utterly ill informed about at the best of times, has turned this into a generic action movie. By moving away from the premise of a normal guy in abnormal situations, it's become a generic summer blockbuster, cartoon action, cartoon villains, the works.


And yet I enjoy Die Hard 4.0. God help me, I grin while watching this film, and I come away from its two hour run time, neither bored nor feeling flat. I'm entertained and satisfied. Ninety percent of that comes from John McClane. He's such an iconic character, so ingrained in pop culture, that you can forgive a litany of sins if he is present. And while Bruce Willis may be playing him as a little older, a little subdued, and less prone to self-indulgent mania, it is still unmistakeably John McClane, and seeing him kick bad guy butt in even a poor movie is entertainment enough. The other ten percent comes from Matthew Farrell, the geek sidekick played by Justin Long. He's perfect sidekick material, a distinct abrasive opposite to play against McClane, much as Zeus Carver was in Die Hard With A Vengeance, and it's the antagonistic relationship that develops between the two that is thematically satisfying, much more so than any antagonism between McClane and the bad guys. Too, while the story is dumb, the action even dumber, the dialogue is still catchy. Gags, quips, and wisecracks in proper Die Hard tradition punctuate the action, and that widens the smile on my face.


Die Hard 4.0 isn't much of a Die Hard film, but it is a solid piece of disposable bubblegum entertainment, and if you can forgive its countless flaws, you should be entertained too. Die Hard 5 is supposed to be in development now. 1. R rated only. If it's PG-13 again, you can kiss the franchise goodbye. 2. Get some decent villains, and steer clear of computers. Hollywood doesn't know s*** about computers. And 3. Never let Kevin Smith have another geek cameo again. In any film… Ever…