Not you too Bruce??

What has happened to the action movie genre? Back in the day we had classics such as the first two Mad Max movies, the Lethal Weapon movies, Aliens, the Dirty Dozen, First Blood etc. Yes you had to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but you always thought when a major stunt was pulled off, or a certain death avoided, that it was physically possible that it could happen. But then along came John Woo, and it all began to get silly. Action sequences had to be almost balletic in execution, as gravity defying leaps, and seemingly bullet proof hero's had to dispatch the arch villain in ever more flamboyant ways. Take Mission Impossible Two. Please take it. Tom Cruise, of all people, engages a mad Scottish geezer in a seemingly never ending duel on motorbikes, one's that do front wheelies at top speed while the protagonists exchange gun fire along first a highway and then a beach. After a thousand rounds have been fired, one finally hits a bike, he drops his gun in the sand, and a big 10 minutes kung fu fight ensues, that would leave most people dead. Just as Tom is about to get it from the baddie, who decides to use a gun, at last, the wind blows the sand away at his feet, to reveal the gun he dropped twenty minutes earlier. Then in slow motion, he kicks the gun in the air, does a back flip (for no apparent reason) he shoots the bad guy, who just sits there and watches him do it, between the eyes. Even more unlikely, he then pulls the way fit Thandie Newton. Ridiculous.

But this kind of nonsense seemed to be the standard for the action genre, as the even less believable Nicholas Cage and John Travolta turned in the laughable FaceOff, with Mr Cage following that up with junk like Con Air and The Rock ( which are almost redeemed by the excellent John Malcovich and Sean Connery). Even Martin Scorcese turned out the "everybody dies in a stupid manner", The Departed. But none can hold a candle to the stupidfest I watched on Sunday night. Die Hard 4.0. Has there ever been such total hogwash committed to celluloid? The plot alone beggars belief, as a bunch of nerds are killed by a maniac programmer, and his squad of elite mercenaries. Of course they have not reckoned with the now decrepit John Mclaine. Now I know you need to suspend a degree a belief. I can accept that in movie land, that a 55 year old New York detective would be able to take out a crack team of highly trained special force assassins. Who couldn't drive a car through on coming traffic, jump out at the last minute, at 60 plus m.p.h., making sure said car uses toll booth as ramp, and takes out low hovering helicopter. When he kills a guy who can run up walls, and kicks his ass all shades of blue out of him, with a single kick, who am I to carp. But then comes the big finale.

For those of you who have not had two hours of your life robbed by this motion picture, I shall try and convey the climax, although it does truly need to be seen to be believed. Brucie is chasing the bad guys, who of course have his daughter and the nerd who has been his sidekick throughout this adventure, held prisoner, as he races to save them. In an articulated 18 wheel truck. Of course the FBI think he is the bad guy, because he is in the bad guys truck, so they send a Harrier jump jet to blow up the vehicle that he is now driving. The jet chases the truck along the free way, firing missiles that nearly, but never quite, destroy the vehicle. So the pilot flies at street level under the flyover, and strafes the truck, nearly, but not quite destroying it. At this point the missiles that were fired earlier, cause the roadway to collapse. This creates a ramp for Mr Willis to drive up. At the same time the collapsing road clips the jet, sending it into a tailspin. At this point, Bruce jumps out of the vehicles cab, onto the spinning jet, and proceeds to run counter clockwise around it before jumping off, and landing on the floor, where he runs like the clappers before the airplane explodes. And that's not it. When he comes face to face with criminal mastermind behind it all, he kills him by firing his gun through himself.

I don't know, maybe I am being to harsh, but the level of credibility needed to be suspended for this yarn was just too much. The running around the doomed fighter jet was quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in a movie. And that includes Julia Roberts as a prostitute in Pretty Woman. What makes it worse, is that the original Die Hard is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best action pictures ever made. Shame on you Bruce....