Blow Stuff Up

Yesterday I went to our high school's first ever graduation. It was very hot. I got sunburned on my shoulders and my nose but I sold a dozen yearbooks and got some hugs and some pictures so it was worth it. Next time I won't forget the sunscreen.

Last night I saw Live Free or Die Hard. That was ridiculous actiony fun. Lots of vehicles exploding in the air and on the ground, crazy martial arts, John McClain wisecracks, various awesomeness just running mad on screen.

The plot was about computer hackers but there was no trouble understanding it at all. The exposition was really well hidden too, thanks largely to Justin Long's incredible talent. That kid is amazing. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find him picking up and Oscar in a few years.

There are, of course, some believability problems with the film. As Date pointed out, there's a swirly stairway to nowhere on the freeway that seems put there only to provide a cool action sequence where a plane tries to destroy the semi McClain is driving. That was a hell of a sequence though and it got applause from the audience when it was over, so maybe the stairway to nowhere wasn't that important. And characters survive some hits that would kill the average person instantly, but whatever. Stuntguys are tough, or in this case, stuntgirls.

Oh, and there was this one scene where this Henchman comes up on Justin Long and Bruce Willis paying no attention and instead of killing these guys straight up, which they've been trying to do the entire film, he tells them to freeze and step away from the console. Dumb Henchman.

And the editing to make the film PG 13 is notable. There's a scene where Justin Long talks about how crazy everything is and whatever he's saying is obviously not what we're hearing. Bruce Willis is in the foreground, but you can still see enough that it's a profanity-filled tirade and all we're hearing is the baby version. And the blood is minimized, which is just silly when you're dropping a guy through one of those bladed fans things you evidently often find in computer cooling towers. And I don't even think they needed it to be PG 13. I think the main audience for this film is people over 17 anyway.

Let's hope the DVD release fixes all that. I want the director's cut.

But it's okay because all that I can overlook due to the awesomeness and McClain's reacting to all the crazy shit like it's the most amusing crazy shit he's seen today.

Something that made the film even more interesting is that even the minor characters had moments of backstory. Timothy Olyphant's team of evil computer programmers sometimes showed a sign of having a conscience on occasion and he himself had a completely believable reason for everything he was doing. It's old school Die Hard. Just like we all hoped for.