I’ve always been a big fan of the Die Hard series - there are several actors who’s presence in the cast list normally mean I’ll enjoy the film. Bruce Willis is one of those. Right from Moonlighting, through a couple of my all time faves - Twelve Monkeys and the Sixth Sense (no I didn’t see it coming) - but it’s John McClean that I enjoy the most - ‘Yippe Ki-yay, Mother F***er!’

So given a choice of Die Hard 4.0, Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer, or Ocean’s Thirteen to see at Cromer yesterday - it was a bit of a no-brainer (the others will have to wait for DVD).

So, yes, as usual it’s as corny as anything - he gets beaten up and bloodied, picks the baddies off one by one, survives the most imppossible incidents and accidents, and yet still manages to come up with a one liner to meet all situations: “Dude - you just killed a helicopter with a car!” - “Yeh, I was out of bullets.”

I don’t know why it is that since the first appearence of computers in action films, it’s unreal what a kid with a laptop (or a PDA, or a dictating machine) can do - Matthew Broderick in Wargames, John Connor in T2: Judgement Day, Angelina Jolie in Hackers etc - but as I keep telling Mel: “It’s not real!” Suspend disbelief - isn’t that what they say? It’s what all the Die Hards have been about. No way was the winch cable on the pickup that long at the end of Die Hard with a Vengeance - but it was still a cracking plot line, and a great stunt.

The technology was nowhere as cool as, say, in Swordfish (come to think of it, wasn’t Travolta’s character called ‘Gabriel’ in that?), and many of the stunts I seem to recollect from other action films - The bit with the fighter was reminscent of True Lies for instance, and I still couldn’t tell you much about the plot. Still, brilliantly put together into a hugely enjoyable package.

No, I loved it - and four point oh is defintely going into my collection when it comes out on DVD - and I’m so glad I saw it on a big screen with the full Dolby Digital experience.