I couldn’t sleep the other night. A sudden bout of insomnia had me up until 3 AM. Some say nothing good happens at that time of day, and I agree. In an attempt to find some path to dreamland, I decided to watch a shitty movie in hopes that I’d fall asleep within 15 minutes and that’d be that. What happened instead was I put on A Good Day to Die Hard, watched it to completion, then sat on my couch in a coma of frustration that this movie even existed. It was a fly in the ointment, a monkey in the wrench, a pain in the ass, to my sleeping plans. To cleanse this terrible feeling I decided to watch Die Hard with a Vengeance. Which then got me thinking, what happened to the Die Hard franchise? What makes the good ones good and the bad ones, well, not feel like Die Hard movies.
Die Hard (1988)
Wrong guy, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. This is the definitive, and dare I say a perfect, action movie. It’s lean, it’s tight, has great characters you care about and stakes that get the viewer invested. With a perfect balance of humor, action, and one of the greatest cinematic villains to grace the silver screen, it’s a masterpiece in the action genre. With an every day guy leading the way. There really is nothing more to say that hasn’t already been said a million times over. It’s awesome. Let’s move on.
Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)
Oh, Die Hard 2. So much expectation at the hands of Renny Harlin, and so much hazy 90’s action. Most people shit on this sequel, and it certainly doesn’t live up to the original, but I have a soft spot for Die Hard 2 and think it’s a perfectly fine Die Hard flick. Sure, its plot looks like swiss cheese, it has a couple borderline, but forgivable, jump the shark moments, and a generic villain that William Sadler did his best with (naked martial arts to start the morning, sure why not). Given that, it does have some great, very Die Hard-esque, action sequences; icicle to the eye ftw, a shootout with a T1000 Robert Patrick and John Leguizamo, some solid plane action, and a fun good guys are bad guys twist that was in front of us the whole time (red vs. blue!). Outside of the lame ‘Die Harder’ tagline, Die Hard 2 manages to still feel like Die Hard. And they actually blew up a 747, you just don’t get that practical these days.
Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
McTiernan is back in the director’s chair for what, to me, is the last installment of the “Die Hard” franchise, and is easily the second best Die Hard movie. We have another great villain (if just a replay of Hans, I mean it is his brother after all) with Jeremy Irons and some intervillain twists and backstabbing which is always fun. We have great buddy / cop action with Willis and Jackson, with social/racial commentary that is still relevant today. What’s crazy is we don’t see the villain on screen until an hour in. Yet, he’s still mysterious and just as menacing over a pay phone. McClane doesn’t kill a bad guy until 50 minutes in. Showing that we don’t need a million bullets flying in order to build tension and to have a hero. We get some great setups early (badge numbers, dump trucks) that payoff later in fantastic ways. That elevator scene (McClane’s first kills btw) is about as Die Hard as it gets. Now, the only downside to Vengeance is the first legit jump the shark we’ll get in the Die Hard franchise, or should I say, surf the truck moment that is a little eye rolling and silly. Sadly, it’ll lead to more McClane surfing in the future. Overall, Vengeance is a fantastic sequel and the sequel that the Die Hard franchise needed.
Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Where to begin. Let’s start with the good, because it’s a short list. LFDH has a reasonable premise. Pulling the older analog McClane into a tech driven world, with a plot that is very relevant today, is a good start. Adding Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lucy McClane is a plus (but basically swapping mom for daughter as the damsel in distress is lame). Timothy Olyphant as the villain, you can’t go wrong, and Maggie Q being Maggie Q badass tops it off. There are two notable action scenes, when McClane first gets Justin Long’s character at his apartment is pretty great, and the “you just shot a helicopter with a car” moment is fun. But that’s it.
Now, the bad. Limiting a Die Hard movie to PG-13 is already a problem. I’m not saying force an R rating, and not that making it R makes it a better movie, but come on, the fake CGI blood is terrible, censoring the franchise line is just…why? Justin Long, I’m sorry, I’m just not a fan. I’ll leave it at that. All the action felt very, obviously, choreographed. This is a hard one but the action in Die Hard and With A Vengeance felt natural to the world and the characters (let’s ignore the surfing a truck moment), in LFDH it felt like everything had a timing to it that was predictable like a Rube Goldberg Machine. It’s fine and kinda fun to watch but I can see it all coming. And of course, it leaves us with the moment when the Die Hard franchise died. The infamous, surf the plane moment. Ugh. Fuck. Why? It was a dumb, mega eye roll scene, and the moment it was no longer a Die Hard movie. It was when John McClane went from everyman to superhero. The script felt like it was written for someone else (which it was), and McClane was just rolled into it. Finally, Bruce Willis. This felt like the decline and when Bruce gave up on acting entirely. He hung onto a few moments, playing up the older, hardened cop, but it was clear Bruce was done acting. Overall, LFDH is fine as a generic action flick, but it’s not Die Hard.
A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)
And here we are. The movie that started all of this. When AGDTDH…fuck it…when Die Hard 5 was announced, I’ll admit I was excited. When that first trailer came out it only added to the excitement. Who knew it’d be another case of the trailer being better than the movie itself? Which it entirely was. Rewatching this was tough because on one hand there are some elements of a potentially good Die Hard movie. They’re just buried, misguided and poorly executed, but they’re there. The father / son story line (although, Jai Courtney, how is he an actor?) was a perfect, even if obvious, transition. If Bruce Willis hadn’t given up on acting back in 2008 this could’ve been a moment to bring some heart back to the Die Hard franchise and get away from the McClane damsels in distress plot line that we’ve all seen enough of. Also, if the script focused on building that relationship versus figuring out what to blow up next with zero reasoning this could’ve been the anchor the film needed. Instead it was more intent on blowing up every product placed vehicle they had on hand.
I’m not done with the script just yet. John McClane was always a wise cracking NYC cop but he wasn’t a dick or at least not to this extent. Here he’s just a cantankerous old man lazing his way through lines, maybe that’s McClane as an old man, but I’m not buying it and it didn’t feel right. Felt like screenwriter Skip Woods, whose credits include Swordfish, Hitman, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, missed the mark and banked on nostalgia that wasn’t even there to begin with.
Next up, director John Moore, best known for…Max Payne? Not enough painkillers in the world. Anyways, his shot at the Die Hard franchise felt like a frantic manic nightmare. With more cuts per second that you can count. There was no sense of action, or placement of where the action was happening, just that it was happening. The editing was an assault on the visual senses and not in a good way at all. No setups or payoffs that made you go..ohhh right! Like the badge number in the elevator in Vengeance. No. Nothing. Just explosion after explosion with no purpose other than to use up the budget, I guess. Senseless action isn’t what makes a Die Hard movie a Die Hard movie.
Let’s talk about the villain. This will be brief because all of them (?) were beyond forgettable. Carrot eating guy, whatever. Then the big twist is the guy they’re escorting to safety turns on them with his daughter. Now, that twist isn’t bad in theory, but it’s executed with the dull side of a machete. Of course it’s another heist, it’s always about the money, which I’m fine with given the other elements of potential, but instead it falls flatter than Hans Gruber from the 30th floor. I do appreciate the use of practical explosions, like they tried to bring it back to its roots. But again, was overkill and missed what Die Hard is about. Plus, the car product placement was overwhelming, and I understand it’s part of the Hollywood money movement, but if it’s so distracting that I’m missing all the unnecessary explosions then…what are we doing here? Overall, a disappointment of a movie and officially when the “Die Hard” franchise Died Hard. What a waste of a good title too: A Good Day to Die Hard.
Final Thoughts
It’s safe to say we don’t need anymore Die Hard movies. We don’t need Bruce Willis’ empty shell dragging through lines like he’s got something more important to do. We don’t need an origin story (the most recent idea circulating Hollywood that, thankfully, has been dropped or lost in hell). We don’t need any torches passed. It’s OK to move on and leave Die Hard as it is. I know I have.
