RATING:

El Mayimbe here with a look at the next installment of the Die Hard series, DIE HARD 4.0. Although the script is currently being rewritten by Bruce Willis's go to guy Doug Richardson (who wrote Hostage), they are sticking to this story which Bomback wrote that was from another script called World War 3.com. Bomback also wrote the upcoming Runaway Train (which we also have for a later review). It goes like this, studios having trouble coming up with good sequel stories sometimes tap pre-existing scripts. Warner Bros. employed George Nolfi to transform his script "Honor Among Thieves" into "Ocean's Twelve," and Fox had great luck using the Jonathan Hensleigh script "Simon Says" as the basis for "Die Hard With a Vengeance." So basically World War 3.com is the basis for Die Hard 4.0

So what's John McClane up to these days?

He no longer is a cop for the NYPD, he's divorced, he's much older, in and out of Alcoholic's Anonymous and he is now a cop who is out of place working for the Department of Homeland Security. His old boss BOWMAN and him go back to the NYPD and Bowman hooked him up with the gig. McClane catches hackers now for a living as demonstrated in the opening scene as he catches a hacker named MATT FOWLER at Pennsylvania University and brings him back in his 65' mustang to Washington. The diehard series is all about McClane being at the wrong place at the wrong time and in the way of some bad guys plans like in the 1st two films. They stick to that formula here. Who are our bad guys? You guessed it -- HACKERS.

They are starting with the leader, a Hungarian GABRIEL SARAGOS who is in his 40s. His goons are all in the 20s starting with PAOLO CONTI a young Roman hipster -- HOSHI WATAYA (daddy of the mothra virus that took out half the networks in Asia) -- IVAN PERCHORIN (one of the true pioneers in metamorphic code, and Moscow's most revered "khakker.') -- and the stunning Eurasian MAI LIHN (who single-handedly has disarmed the cyber security of over seventy multi-internationals).

What do our bad guys do?

For starters they crash the transit system in Washington DC in which McClane had to ditch his car and transport Fowler on the train because all the traffic lights went to shit, then all the ATM systems nationwide are shut down and finally The New York Stock Exchange is crashed before market close. The Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes all plummet. That is only the beginning. Fowler, while in custody, discovers that the hackers are following the instructions of a book written by a computer prodigy named Jeremy Hartwick. Hartwick was this computer prodigy the government recruited when he was like 13 years old to help design ARPANET. ARPANET was the government network that predated the Internet, and Hartwick was part of the team that created it. As Hartwick got older, the feds decided he was a major security risk and booted him out of the program. Of course this pissed him off more so he became one of the pioneer hackers and wrote the book called HOW TO CRASH AN EMPIRE IN 3 DAYS. It details step by step how a handful of hackers could yank America back to the Stone Age -- and it starts more or less like this. You hit the financial base first: the markets, banks, and insurance. It takes 3 days because it has to do with response time. Hartwick calculated exactly how fast the authorities could react. Keep it under 3 days and you'd destroy the system faster than it could defend itself.

Because Fowler shows he is much more useful than the geeks at DHS, Mcclane takes him along as his sidekick so now we got ourselves a buddy movie with Fowler providing all the wise ass relief -- the brains -- while McClane is the brawn.

The script is pretty much straightforward after that. Mclane and Fowler go to the library of congress, take out the book with McClane's library card and get a clue. But of course the villains being hackers, they are on the McClane from the get go and anticipate his every move and know everything they need to know about him.

The script has some good potential and could see why they are furthering developing it with another writer. You guys wanna freak out? This part is creepy. Talk about life imitating art -- Mclane and Fowler get flown to New Orleans because something is going to happen there. The Port of New Orleans is the busiest port in the world. It serves as the gateway for the entire Mississippi River. There is something in Hartwick's book about dividing the country in two. If anything were to happen to that port - it would shut down the Mississippi river. America would be split right down the middle. It is in New Orleans that McClane and Gabriel 1st clash (McClane fails) and have McClane's obligatory first conversation with the head goon and annoys him on the phone. What happens? I will spoil it here because there is no way they are going to film this scene in light of the devastation that happened this week with Hurricane Katrina.

A freight train is about to cross over the river via HUEY P. LONG BRIDGE. A Fuel tanker lies below the bridge. Gabriel presses the return key -- the pull rod abruptly shifts on the railroad track switch point, the closure rail gapes open and the fright train jumps the rails, hurtles out of control and plummets downward - and lands smack into the fuel tanker in the river below exploding on impact. The blast is beyond massive, flipping nearby vessels and sending 70 ft waves in both directions.

It will be interesting to see what and where they replace this scene with in the coming drafts. I cringed as a read this script because of what really happened to New Orleans this week.

My only gripe is that for a die-hard script there is no yippee kay yee mofo (I know, it sounds corny) and there are no personal stakes for McClane in here like in the 1st two movies. This setup aint personal for McClane, it feels like he is just along for the ride. What’s at stake here is the good ole US of A. It feels like a James Bond flick where McClane has to save the world here but other than that it has some good potential and it will be interesting to see where they take this. In my opinion, Fowler steals the show since he has the best scenes and lines and it is really his flick. Could it be that this diehard is a passing of the torch to a younger IPOD wearing hero? We'll have to wait and see.

Until the next review --

Yo soy El Emayimbe.

mayimbe@latinoreview.com