Die Hard Every Movie Ranked

Die Hard: Every Movie Ranked

Contents

Die Hard is revered as one of the greatest action franchises of all time, but what are the best – and worst – films in the Bruce Willis series?

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

Die Hard Every Movie Ranked

The Die Hard franchise is one of the most popular action movie series, but how do the Die Hard movies stack up against one another? For over thirty years, Die Hard has surprised and entertained audiences across the world. To date, the five films have brought in over $1.4 billion at the global box office. The 1988 original was a breakthrough hit for actor Bruce Willis, who reprised his role as John McClane for each of the film’s four sequels: 1990’s Die Hard 2: Die Harder, 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance, 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard (also known as Die Hard 4.0 in some markets), and 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard.

Each film follows John McClane, an everyman police detective who finds himself pitted against heavily-armed criminals in a fight for his life. He’s not a James Bond-styled untouchable spy, an invincible superhero, or an elite specimen of raw muscle like the characters played by fellow 1980s action heroes like Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time who stumbles upon an injustice and decides to do something about it, with or without whatever allies happen to be around to help.

The series has been dormant since 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard, and it’s unclear whether or not Bruce Willis will return for further adventures as John McClane, but even if the Die Hard story never gets the true grand finale it deserves, the series has done more than enough to leave its mark on the cinematic landscape. Here is every Die Hard film, ranked.

5. A Good Day to Die Hard

Die Hard Every Movie Ranked

While there is significant debate as to the quality of each Die Hard sequel, most can agree that A Good Day to Die Hard is the absolute nadir of the franchise. Directed by John Moore, who previously underwhelmed audiences with his lackluster Max Payne adaptation, this Die Hard sequel sees John McClane head to Russia for no good reason other than to exploit the international box office. There, he discovers his son, Jack (Jai Courtney) is inexplicably a secret agent, and the two McClanes go on an uninspired quest to shoot bad guys and engage in heartless banter.

Bruce Willis, the lifeblood of the franchise, is asleep at the wheel in this entry, clearly articulating to viewers that he’s only in this one for the paycheck. Rather than a variety of delightful one-liners, McClane merely repeats the line “I’m supposed to be on vacation!” like a mantra. Even his delivery of the series’ catchphrase, “Yippie-Ki-Yay, motherf*****” feels lazy and obligatory, if the movie’s tagline didn’t give that away.

With lackluster action, a pointlessly meandering storyline, an uninterested leading man, and a lack of recognizable traits from the series, a better title for this film would be Die Hard In Name Only, because that’s exactly what this unfortunate exercise turned out to be.

4. Die Hard 2: Die Harder

Die Hard Every Movie Ranked

The first sequel to the 1988 classic aimed to be bigger and better than the first. It’s certainly bigger, with more explosions and a higher body count; McClane scores some seriously R-rated kills in this entry, from stabbing a guy in the eye with an icicle to feeding one of the main villains to the turbine engine of a jet airplane. In fact, the film was originally given an NC-17 rating, and the edits made to the various action scenes often are often quite noticeable. If an unrated version of Die Hard 2 were to be released, it might be enough to boost the film up a spot on this list.

See also  Dawn Wells Mary Ann on Gilligans Island Dies From COVID19 at 82

Bruce Willis is back in signature form as John McClane, this time forced to take on terrorists who are holding an airport hostage – and his wife is on one of the planes. The ticking clock is handled well, with the dwindling fuel supplies of the planes in the sky leading to high stakes for our hero on the ground. The actual plot is needlessly convoluted, but it works to contrast John McClane, who doesn’t care about anything more than taking down the bad guys.

It’s a worthy follow-up to the original, but lacking in several departments. For one thing, the whole thing feels a bit cheaper and clunkier than the original, with director Renny Harlin frequently lacking the deft touch that made John McTiernan’s original so memorable. Many scenes feel like they’re from a straight-to-video Die Hard knock-off, rather than the genuine article. Still, when Die Hard 2 is firing on all cylinders, it’s an exciting romp with the same adrenaline-pumping action and adventure that made the original a timeless classic.

3. Die Hard with a Vengeance

Die Hard Every Movie Ranked

While Die Hard 2 repeated a few too many beats from the original, Die Hard with a Vengeance benefits from taking the franchise in a different direction. This time, John McClane is truly at his wit’s end. He looks scruffy and disheveled, and the New York City setting feels much more gritty and realistic than previous entries. Director John McTiernan, returning from the original, went to great lengths to avoid making Die Hard With a Vengeance feel like a retread, and the result is a truly unique entry within the storied action franchise.

Jeremy Irons shines as the villain, Simon Gruber, a mad bomber with a grudge against McClane, sending the burned-out cop on a series of tasks all over the city to solve a series of riddles all over New York City, lest he detonate a number of hidden bombs all over New York City. Along for the ride is Samuel L. Jackson as Zeus, a Malcolm X-inspired character with a short temper and a penchant for witty banter with McClane. Their dynamic is a big part of what keeps Die Hard With a Vengeance from feeling too grim with its high-tension and claustrophobic situations. At times, Vengeance resembles an edgy Brian De Palma thriller more than a straight-up action movie, but it all comes together in a surprisingly successful entry in the franchise.

Ultimately, the movie kind of fizzles before the finale, with the showdown on the cargo ship feeling like where the film should have concluded, and the tacked-on ending feeling like a vestigial appendage to an otherwise tightly scripted action-thriller.

2. Live Free or Die Hard

Die Hard Every Movie Ranked

Originally released in 2007 with a studio-mandated PG-13 rating, Live Free or Die Hard was controversial for dropping the series’ trademark harsh language and bloody action. Fortunately, an unrated version of the movie was released on home video, and the result is arguably the best of all the Die Hard sequels, and possibly the last time Bruce Willis truly put his whole heart and soul into an acting performance. The iconic action star is clearly having a blast throughout the entirety of the film, and his energy is downright infectious.

This time, McClane is up against a group of cyber terrorists led by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), a disgruntled cyber-security expert who effectively takes the entire country hostage. McClane’s ally this time is a 20-something hacker named Matt Farrell (Justin Long), and their dynamic is both funny and occasionally more heartfelt than it needs to be. The pairing of young computer experts with McClane’s more blunt approach helps this entry feel different from its predecessors, and the more straightforward storyline keeps the pace moving at a strong clip, heading from action sequence to action sequence with admirable speed. When McClane’s daughter, Lucy Gennaro McClane, (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is introduced as a hostage in the third act, the film truly kicks into overdrive and rockets towards a final, intimate showdown.

See also  The Simpsons 15 Weirdest Recurring Characters

Director Len Wiseman has a genuine gift when it comes to action, and the stunt work on display in Live Free or Die Hard is simply jaw-dropping, even in the PG-13 edit. The unrated cut, of course, is superior, thanks to more gory shootouts (though the CGI blood can sometimes look a little dodgy) and salty language, with the iconic “Yippie-ki-yay, motherf*****” restored after the PG-13 version did a poor version of censoring the expletive with the sound of gunfire.

1. Die Hard

Was there ever any doubt as to which Die Hard movie is the best? Die Hard is considered by many to be one of the best films ever made, period. Every action movie made after Die Hard has taken inspiration from this 1988 classic, which redefined the action genre. At the time, Bruce Willis was best known for his role in the romantic detective comedy/drama, Moonlighting. It’s hard to believe now, but his role in Die Hard was a huge departure for the actor. However, it worked perfectly, since John McClane isn’t a typical action hero; he’s not someone who is called in to deal with a crisis, he’s someone who just so happens to be in a position where he can make a difference. He’s an ordinary guy who is thrust into an extraordinary situation and has to fight his way out.

At the outset, McClane isn’t armed to the teeth; he doesn’t wear fatigues, he doesn’t have a survival knife, and he doesn’t have any military experience. He doesn’t even have shoes. His only ally is a patrol cop (Reginald VelJohnson) who can offer little more than moral support from a distance. His only weapons are his biting one-liners and whatever he can scrounge from the corpses of Hans Gruber’s henchmen as he takes them down, one by one. Speaking of Gruber, the late Alan Rickman is another one of Die Hard’s many X-factors. His performance is regarded as one of the greatest cinematic villains of all time, questionable German accent notwithstanding. He may not be much of a physical threat, but he’s intelligent, conniving, and in complete control at all times. Truly a role that is carried by Rickman’s performance and little else.

There aren’t enough good things to say about Die Hard. It’s a film that completely rewrote the book on how to make an action movie, launching a whole new era of cinema. Every line of dialogue is endlessly quotable, and the high-octane action sequences are as pulse-pounding today as they were back in 1988. Simply put, Die Hard is one of the greatest action movies ever made, as well as one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time (you heard us).

Zak Wojnar is a writer from New York City. He’s covered everything from video games and movies to maple syrup and deli business. Thanks to Screen Rant, he’s discovered his newest passion, interviewing artists. He takes great joy in letting film and gaming legends tell their own story and share their passion for their art. Zak’s first memory is going with his dad to Tower Records and buying the VHS boxed set of the original Star Wars trilogy. Over the next decade or so, those tapes would be completely worn out through overuse. When he’s not preparing for the next big interview, he can usually be found sitting too close to the TV, either re-watching Miami Vice or The X-Files, or getting lost in a video game. Zak has bylines at Game Informer, Muscle & Fitness, PopCultureGalaxy, Men’s Fitness, Cheese Connoisseur, and Deli Business (see, that wasn’t a joke before!), among others. Follow and engage with him on Twitter @ZakWojnar.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/die-hard-movies-ranked-worst-best/

Movies -