Dir Len Wiseman

Written by Mark Bomback, David Marconi, Roderick Thorpe (characters), John Carlin (based on the article ‘A Farewell to Arms’)

Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Maggie Q, Cliff Curtis, Kevin Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Željko Ivanek.

The United States is under cyber attack from a cyber expert Thomas Gabriel (Olyphant). He is eliminating computer hackers who might be able to stop his attack and the FBI have asked NYPD to bring in some experts. When John McClane (Willis) is asked to bring in Matt Farrell (Long), pretty soon McClane is on the case to help bring Gabriel down.

Oh, how the mighty series has fallen. In this fourth in the franchise, it is the weakest in the series to date. The direction from Wiseman is okay. He is able to film the many many action sequences very well, but there didn’t really feel like there was anything inspiring.

The screenplay was particularly weak, with silly banter between Farrell to McClane early in the piece when he is seen to be socially awkward. The lack of any course language in the ‘PG13’ version – and the egregious muffled ‘Yippe Ki Ya Mother F’ at the end, is just a slap in the face to fans of the franchise.

This is also the first instance where McClane’s usual plot armour becomes almost superhuman, where he is no longer the everyman that he was in #1 and #2. His throwing cars at helicopters, jumping onto crashing planes, and dodging a hail of gunfire from a fighter jet are just some of the obstacles he is able to withstand, from what is to date the weakest franchise villain.

The ups are that the supporting cast are all strong, with such great cast members added this time around. Each of them are fine singularly and better collectively. Olyphant does what he can with the script, and he is at least somewhat memorable as the villain. It also has one of my favourite actors Ivanek in a small role.

Just good, not a fail by any means, but the worst in the franchise so far.