The Die Hard Movies Reviewed
- Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 8:37
- Entertainment
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Die Hard movies are a great piece of film history. That is probably where they need to stay, though, instead of having updated versions coming out years after what was thought of as the last one in the series. It is probably time for John McClain to be retired. Let Bruce Willis keep doing action movies, but this franchise has already seen its glory days.
The first movie pits our hero against a group of charming bad guys, lead by the lovable Alan Rickman, who was the perfect example of an evil baddie that people love to see get thrown out of a building. John has to fight against this group on his own because none of the cops in the area believe that there is really a problem at the building. The great thing is that John is trying to get help, he isn’t just some crazy vigilante trying to do everything on his own. Eventually he does have to do it all on his own, but his success is mostly due to luck and his ability to keep going after getting his butt kicked.
The second movie takes place in and around an airport. It gets a little silly, as John again just happens to be there and the bad guys have a plan that is evil yet probably not as well thought out as it could have been. In the end it is foiled by a single man on a runway with a torch.
The third movie takes place in New York. All of New York. The movies have expanded with each one, and now he is in the middle of a cunning plan to steal a lot of gold. He isn’t looking for help as much this time, but that is largely because there isn’t anyone around that can help, save for a sassy Samuel Jackson.
But the forth movie ends up having an entire nation at siege. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense how that happens. What makes less sense is that this cop from New York suddenly seems to have super powers. Yes, he seemed nearly indestructible in the first three movies, but now he is able to jump out of a moving car that he has just turned into a rocket to destroy a helicopter and get up and walk away.
These types of movies work better when they are done on a bit smaller scale. They need to be done smaller. This isn’t a super hero we are dealing with, this is an aging cop. John can’t do everything, and the audience should know this. Regardless of how much people want to root for him, it is hard when he has become some sort of superman instead of just being a tough New York cop.
The biggest difference in the movies is the difference in the way movies are being made. Super hero movies have upped the ante on action, and special effects have gotten a lot better. It isn’t that the filmmakers can’t make a good Die Hard movie, it is simply that they are able to make a movie that is more about the flashy effects than about the basic idea of one man taking on a larger group of baddies.
Die Hard movies are never going to go away. People will still want to watch them for many years to come. There just comes a time when a new one can’t do justice to the franchise anymore. John McClain needs to retire and Bruce Willis can do other outlandish action movies in its place, and that way everyone will be happy.
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About the Author
Naomi Gilliam has written 34 stories on this site.