BRUCE WILLIS & MAGGIE Q GIVE NATION GOOD REASON TO LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD.
1st Contact: Admiral
Final Rank: Captain

This is easily the best of the die hard sequels, as the story is not highly relevant and likely,but the fact the domestic terrorists (the Tim Mc Veys of the world) would do this is heartbeat and skip out the country with our hard earned 401K dollars.

I just wish that Scream 2 co-killer Tim (weird pattern developing) Olyphant did the role with his usual slickly cool swagger. Instead of the lamely,uninspiring way to do his(especially to cause this level of mayhem)geek patriot-Tom Gabriel driven to destroy the nation, in order to possible save it and net him and his girlfriend over $100 billion. Plus, his grey hair at 39 feels too much of Tom Cruise in Collateral.

Maggie Q reminds me of an obscure proverb about being soft as the rain,but painfully hard as a flood. This is why her performance so overshadowed that of her boyfriend and perhaps she should have been the lead bad guy. Once John McClaine "shoves a SUV up her ass" the bad guys lose personality and competence altogether.

Her beauty and fighting comes off as an Asian Jennifer Garner on the wrong side of the battle, and has a weird anti-chemistry with Willis. The sleazy, vicious nature of their underground prize fight- where both combatants are getting off on the sexualized violence (Particularly Bruce's McClaine!-This got a PG-13 rating!?)After losing the first round of kickboxing with her, he gets a sadistic Ike Turner look in eyes and pulverized the dangerously calm, but determined fighting beauty.

Then he picks her up like a wrestler and bloody rips out her hair-body slamming her against a metal bookcase, and then laughs about likes its funny. After she recovers, he learns to never over ugly up a girl in a fistfight and gets kicked through plate glass window almost to his death two and 1/2 stories down. That's when John finds that SUV and runs down Mai (Q) & drives them both through more glass into the elevator shaft where their painful dating ritual continues,with someone about to fall to their death.

After they trade more blows, he finally KOs Mai and climbs out the truck, in time to see her drop to her crushing, fiery death and then laughs heartily that he killed a girl, albeit a tough one. Then, Willis goes into Sarah Silverman territory stopping just shorting of making racial epitaphs while playing up the fact she's a "Asian hooker bitch" and admitting to Gabriel (Tim O) his "ninja chick" was defiantly the best of "1-800 Henchman" service.

The films other action set pieces are quite good, but nothing too original. Still, the centerpiece of the action, which keeps this old-school is what will John say after he gorily dispatches another bad guy (The best "I'll send a doctor for ya" and just walks away as the Euro trash dies ten seconds later.)He does have decent interplay which his charge, the uber-geek, tech genius played by Justin Long (Dodge ball & PC V. Mac ads.)

The film can't help but lapse into utter insanity- because once the actions starts the plot holes get larger- without somehow destroying the credibility built up- in the movie. A chase down a tunnel where Gabriel has sent cars in both directions, leading to crash a cop car into a killer helicopter was ballsy genius.

The thing is almost destroys the enjoyment level is the fact that- John MC. this time...is quite creepy this time around. As stated, the REAL climax (Q. V. Willis)is exhilarating to watch, but is quite creepy considering the rating given. You feel John is working out what he really like to do to Holly for leaving him (they divorced six years ago.) Plus, one can practically sense his orgasmic fever during his face-off with Mai Lin (Also, that fact that Mai refuses to talk to him during the battle while he taunts her constantly {Muhammad Ali style}-relates to the state of mind of the charaters quite well.) If the film was better written it could have ended there.If there is a fifth one, it would cool and ironic if they gave John his fantasy-a hot martial artist woman that can be his sidekick in the final chapter. Someone call Kelly Hu or Lucy Lui!

McClaine doesn't help himself by stalking his daughter at college campus early on, when its apparent she quite sexually active and can take care of herself. It gives the iconic, reluctant hero a Chris Benoit(murder-suicide) vibe that takes away from his rooting factor at key moments.

Still if you can get past that, the lapse in logic and many asides to recent action films in past 15 years or so, with True Lies racing to the forefront a lot in this. It's perfect popcorn movie for this summer, if you're adult.

Director Len Wiseman (the Underworld series)seems very professional and dedicated during the battles, but gave Hard too much of vanilla presence when there's no action on the screen.

Finally, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Kevin Smith make the most of parts without as being annoying as they could have been. One thing- at one point in the main climax Lucy McClain disarms the bad guys gun the same way Mai took apart John's gun. Did they go to the same advance, self-defense course for babes?