I feel that I have to write a review for the 'legendary'  <Die Hard 4.0> before I can go back to the painstaking program-debugging with a peaceful mind.

<Die Hard 4.0> came out on silver screen when 2&3, the non-brainer ones, have almost died out from people’s memories. Several friends thought it’s a summer blockbuster, stirring and imagination-stretching, and strongly recommended it as a must see action-film. I was really curious about how hard they would die this time, of course, heroes would never be allowed to die.

In <Die Hard 4.0> my screen hero, Bruce Willis, came back as a tough patriotic cap, John Maclane (Wow, he is in his 50’s now, but still working in the frontline of anti-terrorism, cool!). He teamed up with a young and extremely talented hacker, Matt, who inadvertently got involved in, to face against another slick, gentle-looking hacker, Thomas. Thomas used to be the chief software designer of US’ classified central network. The evil hacker batoned a team who systematically broke down American digital infrastructure and produced a striking panic in financial market by hijacking it. And finally, the lunatic French (his accent sounds like French) shut off communication system and all the utilities like electricity, gas et al. Our hero, with little understanding of IT and hack but enough justice and bravery, fought fearlessly with the wicked group consisting of killers and hackers. After a series of non-stop and mind-freshing action: face to face wrestles, old-fashioned car chase (like the films in 90s), dramatic helicopter crush and even unbelievably challenging the most advanced figher F-35 (wo kao!), John finally stood in front of his superb opponent, Thomas, pointing his USP pistol at him (As I counted, John had made more than 22 shots with his USP without reloading ammo. The cartridge clip of a USP can load 12 bullets at most as I know.). Of course, after another series of necessary brutal wrestle, life-threatening wound (always) and heroical dialogue, the villains died hard and John, with the help of his genius teammate, rescued his estranged daughter and pulled US digital infrastructure back from the peril.

Frankly speaking, I did not have much to re-taste after I watched Die Hard 4, except for its pulse-fluttering computer-generated special effects. The sequel is so predictable that people can easily figure out what’s the drop scene like at the moment they made the first sip of coca in cinemas. The story that simply developed through one thread without any suspense still stuck in the old way of the previous Die Hard. All the US special agencies and scientists seems to be fools and were totally indulged in the panic without any solution to offer. Our hero seemed to be a superman who does not need any communication and backup from the strongest government in the world. All of these are ridiculous! The spectacular special effects and charismatic martial skills were neutralized by the dull dialogue. I am wondering whether the director cut off the dialogue deliberately because both Maggie Q and the French actor seemed not to have a good command of English. The more silent, the merrier. But entertainment-action films are not adult things. The actors and actress can not just use short phrases which slightly longer than ‘Oh yes’, ‘Good’, ‘Perfect, no stop please’, et al. The soulful eye contacts between Maggie Q and Thomas, just before Maggie kissed goodbye with him to implement her dangerous task, became redundant because Thomas did not show any sadness at the female killer’s death. Maybe the director was too busy making the amazing graphics to forget his previous indication regarding the relationship. The last flaw in my mind is the end which is so pathetic that it seems that the director has run out of his imagination and got quite tired of the long-hours’ heart-quaking action, he would like to complete it in a hurry and then go to bed.

In the end, I came to the conclusion that ‘Die hard’ is a phrase only for villains and terrorists even they are really talented and well organized; instead for our heroes, even they are suspected to be simple-minded, lack of communication and backup. In Die Hard families, heroes always get wounded at first and stand on the ground at last. People with justice will be blessed by god! Yes, right, it’s the justice that grants people magic power to ensure every win when heading against devils. So, no wonder the divine US troop is unbeatable wherever they sweep through, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan et al., and, maybe in the future, North Korea, China and even Russia. I would like to concentrate on my work if they bother doing the fifth one.