Live Free or Die Hard…Or Just Get The Blu-ray

Starring: Bruce Willis (Tears of The Sun, Armageddon) as John McClane, Timothy Olyphant (Hitman, Go) as Thomas Gabriel, Jason Long (Jeepers Creepers) as Matt Farrell, Maggie Q (Mission Impossible 3) as Mai, Cliff Curtis (Sunshine, 10,000 BC) as Bowman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Deathproof) as Lucy McClane, and Kevin Smith (Dogma) as Warlock.
Directed By: Len Wiseman (Underworld)
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Korean, Cantonese

The Story
He’s back in the wrong place at the wrong time once again, and this time, it gets personal. It’s been 10 years since we’ve seen John McClane (Willis), and time hasn’t been kind to him. He is divorced, is in debt, hates his job, and his kids won’t speak to him.

In Live Free or Die Hard [Blu-ray], McClane finds an adversary in Thomas Gabriel (Olyphant), an angry and more than disgruntled ex-government employee who was fired from his job as adviser to the US cyber-terrorism task force when he pointed out the shortcomings in national security post 9/11. Predictably, he wants payback and is prepared to bring America to its knees to get it.

Their paths cross when McClane is asked to escort cyber-hacker Matt Farrell (Long) to Washington DC to be interviewed about the breach of security at the FBI’s cyber-terrorism task force headquarters. Things start to get messy. Gabriel wants Farrll dead and is prepared to demolish an apartment block (and more) to ensure just that. But he hadn’t counted on John McClane, no sir-ee!

Barely getting out alive, McClane and Farrell make it to DC just as Gabriel was starting to unravel the US electronic infrastructure bit by bit. Things get personal when McClane kills Gabriel’s squeeze, Mai (Q) and Gabriel snatches McClane’s feisty daughter, Lucy (Winstead). What follows in the next 2 hours is a game of cat and mouse between McClane and Gabriel - a classic story of analog vs digital. Of course, we know who’s going to win, but we can’t help but watch, anyway.

The set pieces were spectacular, especially when McClane fights the F35 Raptor on the freeway. I like how McClane ended up in a lift shaft - again, excellent.

Long was great as the annoying, whiny sidekick who shows his grit when it was absolutely needed. It was also great watching Olyphant’s rather cool and composed character start to unravel as things started going apeshit. Q was eye-candy, and Smith was hilarious as the computer geek still living with his ma.

The show, however, really belonged to Bruce’s McClane. He steals every scene he is in and seems to really lap it up - the very reluctant hero and does what’s right, despite getting 10 shades of khaki kicked out of him. He is still the undisputed master of this genre. All hail to Willis!

As a negative, why, oh why, did Fox give us the PG-13 cut on the Blu-ray movie when the DVD version was unrated? They were released at right about the same time, but according to fox, they didn’t have enough time to author the extended version for the Blu-ray discs. Bollocks. This just stinks of laziness, if you ask me. A Die Hard movie without the cussing is like fat-free cream cakes or alcohol-free vodka. Hopefully, Fox will release the unrated cut in the future.

As a big fan of the Die Hard franchise, I enjoyed Live Free or Die Hard immensely. Saying that, I enjoy all of Bruce Willis’ movies. I give it 9/10 - 9.5/10 if it hadn’t been cut rather crudely (noticeable, too).

The Visuals
This Blu-ray movie had an aspect ration of 240:1 encoded in 1080p. The image was razor sharp with oodles of detail. Nighttime shots were detailed, even in the shadows. Daytime shots were extremely life-like. Facial details were superb. You can see every scar and every bristle on McClane’s weathered face. Skin tones were spot on and natural. Aerial shots were also highly detailed. Many of the interior shots had a steely blue look, but that was clearly the director’s intention.

Fox used an AVC-MPEG4 codec on a 50GB disc and it showed beautiful images, something I hope Warner Bros. will start using on their Blu-ray movies come 1st of June. All in all, I give the visuals 9/10.

The Audio
The audio was done in dts HD Master 5.1. Unfortunately, as my PS3 will not decode this HD codec (yet!), I could only listen to the core audio (1.5 mbps). Even so, this was an extremely good soundtrack and was very aggressive through all channels with fantastic bass. The dialogue was clear at all times. The ample gunshots and explosions were loud and bombastic. There is also Dolby Digital 5.1 in English, Spanish, and French.

I do hope that Sony sees fit to upgrade the PS3 with on-board decoding of dts HD Master audio very soon because I just cannot wait to hear this particular movie in all its explosive glory. As it stands, I give it 8/10.

The Extras
The Blu-ray included commentary from Bruce Willis, Len Wiseman, and Editor Nicolas De Toth. There was also a feature documentary - Analog Hero in a Digital World - on the making of Live Free or Die Hard with input from the cast and crew. This was an in-depth and well-made documentary that covers all aspects of the movie from screenplay to editing. I found it rather interesting and fun to watch. It ran for about an hour and 40 minutes.

Next, we we “Yikee Ki Yay, Motherfucker.” Bruce Willis is interviewed by Kevin Smith. Actually, this was more of a chat than an interview. It was very lighthearted and it was obvious that Kevin Smith is a huge fan of the franchise. This ran for about 22 minutes.

The Blu-ray disc also included the music video of Die Hard by Guyz Nite. This was a hit on the Internet at the time that Live Free or Die Hard was showing theatrically. Initially, Fox was going to sue the band, but seeing how popular the song was in YouTube, they decided to back them instead. Having heard them, it’s not my cup of tea, but whatever. There was also a short 5-minute making of the video segment.

The disc featured the theatrical trailer in HD plus trailers for Die Hard, Die Hard 2 Die Harder, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and The Siege - again, all in HD.

Next, we have Fox Legacy where Tom Rothman from Fox describes the popularity of the Die Hard franchise. This runs for about 6 minutes. There is also a Blu-ray exclusive game, the Black Hat Intercept Game, which is basically an arcade-style shoot ‘em up game introduced by the Warlock (Smith). I’m not a big games fan so I didn’t delve too deeply into this, though I may give it a try one quiet Sunday afternoon. Lastly, there’s also a D-box motion code for the lucky people with D-box integrated motion systems, either as sofas or as add-ons for their existing sofas.

All in all, I give the rather generous extras 9/10.

Overall Impact
Everywhere was where it should be, following the Die Hard pattern:

- McClane’s sardonic humor - check.
- Mandatory wasting of henchmen - check.
- Reluctant buddy - check.
- Action by the buckets - check and check.
- A bloodied and battered McClane - check, check, check.
- Good ol’ “Yipee ki yay, motherfucker!” - Almost check.

The visuals and audio were impressive, and the extras were topnotch. All in all, I give it 9.5/10. This is one Blu-ray movie that needs to be in anyone’s collection.

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