15th anniversary of Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Better than expected but doesn’t match the prior movies, kinda like Crystal Skull.

I thought it was an okay movie, but it didn't really feel like a proper Die Hard sequel, more like a soft reboot.


Positives:

At this point Willis still seemed to care about the character unlike in the follow-up, the awful A Good Day to Die Hard

Justin Long's character could've been really annoying, instead he was surprisingly likeable. He's clearly no Samuel L. Jackson, but he did the best he could with the part.

It had a promising concept, pitching old school McClane, who is still stuck in the analogue age, against IT terrorists.


Negatives:

Bland villain, who doesn't have one single memorable scene.

Movie goes way over-the-top in some scenes like the fighter jet sequence.

Len Wiseman's direction is workmanlike at best, he makes Renny Harlin look like George Miller in comparison.

I saw it once years ago. Decent film, but it felt more like "Die Hard" in name.

My feelings are about the same, on it's own it's fine but it doesn't feel like it warrants to carry the title of Die Hard because of how visually different it is to its predecessors and that John McClane is pretty much a superhero in this which defeats the gimmick of him being an average guy trying to make it out okay. The PG-13 rating doesn't do it much favors, either. I'd still watch it over the next one, though.

I only watched it once, but I remember liking it. Not as bad as people said and much better than its successor.

Not the best of the series, but it is a fun action movie.

I remember Kevin Smith having a small role in it.

I have 3 main issues with the movie that keep me from being a fan. The PG-13 rating (though that is fixed with the R-rated cut), Timothy Olyphant is boring as the villain and Bruce Willis is more just playing generic action movie Bruce Willis than he is playing John McClane. 

I don't have much of an issue with superhero John McClane, because he already does that to some extent in Die Hard 2 and especially Die Hard with a Vengeance. 

I think the biggest mistake that the movie makes it to not just make the aliens archeologists and then say that is why they landed here in the 1947. Instead the movie decided to go this strange route of "interdimensional beings who landed here thousands of years ago and gave humans the means to become technologically advanced, who are also archeologists." 

The movie is clearly about aliens due to the fact that the Roswell conspiracies influenced popular culture so much in the 1950s, but then practically betrays that with the ancient aliens stuff.

There were 3 major fears in the 1950s, the Cold War, aliens and nuclear testing. All of that is used in a very fun way in the movie. The only scene in the movie that especially bothers me is the "swinging with monkeys scene" which is probably intended to be a Tarzan reference. It is so so stupid though. People always mention the nuke the fridge scene (extremely unrealistic, but also hilarious and atmospheric), but the monkey scene is so much dumber and has no reason to be in the movie.