I thought I had up a review of the OG Die Hard but after some searching, I was incorrect. So, below I'll post the review for Die Hard (which is from the summer; I also saw that movie on the big screen last Tuesday) then my Saturday night review for Die Hard 2.
DIE HARD
This is another review I am doing over to replace the ultra-short original one I had up. The rating hasn't changed, though. There aren't too many films I have seen many times in my life but this is one of them... and it is also one of my favorites. I have seen this on television, on VHS, on DVD, on Blu (how I saw it Wednesday night), with my family on Christmas Day back in '09 when we were at the house of one of my sisters, who lives halfway across the country from me. I even got to see it on the big screen the summer of '04 and the print was an original and beat-up, which was great in terms of charm. I will mention a few reasons why I rate this a full 5 stars:
The Hero: Bruce Willis plays John McClane, who isn't a ripped or muscular slab of beef like Arnold or Sly was in the past. He's a typical New York City cop, profane and who has such faults as a troubled marriage (a lot of it is due to his selfishness) and at one point he admits that he fears he won't make it out of the Nakatomi Plaza alive. At the time that was refreshing. Now, maybe it should swing back around and we should have no hulking slabs of beef as action heroes... I just have no idea who would stand on that mantle.
The Plot: It defies expectations: you think that the villains are terrorists; they're all foreigners and hold hostages. However, they never say they are terrorists and they actually are looking to steal 650 million dollars in bearer bonds that are sealed in the building, which is a great idea as no records are ever kept on who owns on that type of bond. They have things thought out very well and you expect the law enforcement (such as the police chiefs, the SWAT Team and even the FBI) to handle the crises correctly but they constantly fail and fall into the trap of the villains. Plus, there are many great little moments you may not pick up on until you see it at least a few times and often, things brought up early pay off later. Oh, and there's many great lines too.
The Characters: There are so many here that are memorable, from the hero to the villain (Alan Rickman in an incredible role) to the minor ones, such as Al Leong (playing one of the bad guys) grabbing a candy bar he finds on display in the building. While I always enjoyed such people as the Twinkie-loving Sgt. Al Powell, multiple viewings have made me also appreciate such people as the SWAT team leader. Ellis in particular is hilarious as a typical coke-snorting 80's yuppie D-bag, with an unforgettable laugh. Even though the bad guys are holding a few dozen people hostage and have murdered more than one person, they have the combination of cleverness and charisma and you almost want to see them pull off the big heist; how they are able to perform the last step and then escape was built up perfectly throughout so when you see how it happens... for a moment you do want to see them ride off in the sunset.
The Action: No goofy CGI; just practical effects, actual stunts, bloody moments and beautiful matte paintings in the background. It's still thrilling in 2015. There are some quality setpieces for sure.
Those are just a few reasons why this is one of my all-time favorites and maybe at the top as THE favorite. I won't talk about the 4th and 5th movies as I don't even regard them as true sequels but the second and third-while both flawed-I'll watch again sometime in the future so I can talk about them here.
By the way, out of all the times I have seen this, some things I never noticed until a few years ago. For example, the scene where a dead man falls on the car of Sgt. Powell and he freaks out. There's a brief moment where you see the limo driver Argyle obliviously talking on his then-hip car phone. To think it wasn't until relatively recently that I spotted in the background of that moment the fake body of the dead man fly off in a hilarious fashion.
DIE HARD 2
This past Tuesday, I was able to watch Die Hard in a theatre; as that's one of my all-time favorites I couldn't turn down that opportunity. It was great. I once saw it on the big screen in 2004, which was an original beat-up film print and in this digital age, I appreciate such things. I already reviewed the movie this past summer so I don't need to do it again. However, I needed to give a proper review to this and as I hadn't watched this in a long while, I figured this was the perfect time to do so, with the OG film still not having left my mind yet.
I presume many are familiar with the plot of how some bad guys use technology to take over the Dulles National Airport in Washington, D.C. for the purpose of them taking an overthrown dictator and drug dealer of THE 80's action movie fictitious country (Val Verde), played by the great Franco Nero. John McClane happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time again. John has to deal with such obstacles as a stereotypical police chief in Dennis Franz, and there are also some unexpected enemies.
This is not the all-time-classic that the original is. Some of the dialogue is incredibly cheesy or goofy. The way that they shoehorn in a minor character or two is a little goofy considering this takes place almost 3,000 miles away from the Los Angeles setting of the first. Characters like the one that Franz played was written to be stupid, just because. Like what we get in too many modern action films, various parts of the plot make little to no sense. I could list various examples, but I won't go into detail on those Chris Nolan movies...
Yet, I can still give it a nice grade, as the action scenes are still cracking, there are some funny moments, and it is nice to see John McClane and his wife Holly. Plus, Meat from the Porky's films gets a rather nasty death scene. So while I wish it didn't have its faults and the major act of terrorism the movie has can be questioned as to whether it should have happened (in this day and age it does look worse), talent behind the camera such as producer Joel Silver, director Renny Harlin-his reputation may be mud now but he was actually cool back then-and composer Michael Kamen help make sure that this isn't a bad motion picture. Heaven knows that the 4th and 5th film in the series (which I can at least easily pretend that they aren't true Die Hard movies and even if the lead in those two was not John McClane, they'd still be pretty terrible) are much worse than this.
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