Thoughts on Live Free or Die Hard aka Die Hard 4

What is the deal with “Live Free or Die Hard”? I was originally very excited to see the movie, and not because I want to see a 50-something man run around shooting people. I can do without that. Aging action stars are so weird. But anyways, Maggie Q. is in it, and so is Justin Long, and Timothy Olyphant plays the bad guy, and I’ve been a fan of Olyphant ever since “Deadwood”. Plus, the trailers just rocks so hard. But all the things I’m hearing about the film just sounds…wrong. I don’t know what to make of this movie.

There was that news that “Live Free or Die Hard” would be the first PG-13 installment in the franchise (no frakkin’ way, really?), then talks of a Die Hard 5 already (this isn’t a surprise, studios always float this to gauge reaction), then our buds over at Cinema Blend talked about how the studio suits told the press not to mention the previous “Die Hard” films because they wanted “Live Free or Die Hard” to act as a kind of “Batman Begins” for the franchise.

I don’t really know what to make of all this bad hoodoo floating around “Live Free or Die Hard”. Then here, Bruce Willis mentions that he wants to do a “Die Hard 5″, but only if the director Len Wiseman and his co-stars Maggie Q. and Justin Long returns with him. Which is odd, because Maggie Q. plays a bad guy and from all appearances, piles up the bodycount. So is he telling us she isn’t going to die in “Live Free”? Maybe she’ll turn on Olyphant and become a good girl at the end, which would be fine with me, I’d hate to see Maggie Q. get killed, even in a movie.

I dunno, all this stuff I’m hearing is just so weird, I don’t really know what to make of them…

Then I just look at the trailer and I want to see the movie again. It certainly seems like this is a movie that could stand on its own.

“Live Free or Die Hard” opens June 27th, 2007.