"You don't tug on Superman's cape,
You don't spit into the wind,
You don't pull the mask off that 'ol Lone Ranger, and
You don't mess around with Jim!"
- Jim Croce
Jim Croce died entirely too young, so he can be forgiven for not including Harrison Ford in the above lyric. How dumb a terrorist to you have to be to take on Harrison Ford? Most people don't mind seeing Die Hard VII, as long as our most stalwart hero plays the lead. The movie poster lets you know what you're buying, since it's one big close-up of Ford. And who could make a better president? Harrison might even be able to pull in enough votes to get the real job, but I doubt that he would want to "step down," let alone suffer a horrendous pay cut.
Simple enough: perennial wacko villain Gary Oldman hijacks Air Force One and the prez battles his way out against impossible odds. On the ground, Glenn Close makes a good vice president, dealing with the terrorists, the cabinet, the military, and scariest of all - the press. William Macy didn't get his Oscar for Fargo, but he did get more work. Here he plays a general involved in much of the onboard action. Poor Jurgen Prochnow gets underused as a captured Russian general - to be traded for the president. Special effects? - the (2nd) best reason for reprising Die Hard is an imaginative array of stunts and CGI aerial sequences.
The movie has the obligatory innocents - the prez's wife and daughter and executed hostages from the White House staff. You also have to swallow that the Russian terrorists can get onboard in the first place. Here, a Secret Service agent is the inside man, but his motivation is never explained. Small quibbles, though, since such underpinning is invariably present in this genre, and this is certainly one of the better efforts. Die Hard I is still my favorite, though..Gary Oldman could learn a few things from Alan Rickman about villainy (and picking varied roles, too).
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