The Die Hard movies are prime examples of action in the eighties and nineties. They capture the humor and the craziness of action movies while not sacrifices some seriously good action scenes. The newest movie in the franchise was, for many people, a bit of a disappointment. That is, most likely, because it went a little bit too much over the top.
The first pits a single cop, John McClain, against a group of terrorists/robbers. The main bad guy, played by a very stylish Alan Rickman, is the perfect example of the over the top, pure evil bad guy that we like to see fall out of a window at the end of the movie. What is great is that even though John has to fight everyone on his own, he spends the whole movie trying to get anyone else to come and help him. This gives the movie a sense of realism, as well as telling us that John doesn't think he can really take out everyone on his own, even though that is what ends up happening, though it does happen largely through luck.
The second movie gets a little more outlandish. John happens to be at the site of another terrorists/robbery scheme and happens to be the one that is able to stop them before anything truly bad happens. He is a little more gung ho in this movie, but he still tries to get as much help as possible from anyone else who is around.
The third movie does a good job of being really over the top. There is a lot that is happening in the movie, and John is caught in the middle, although this time because the bad guy calls him out personally. Still, the movie is a good balance of humor and action and wasn't so over the top on action as to be ridiculous.
The fourth movie takes on most of the nation. John goes from being a cop on a certain beat to having to try to be everywhere and stop a national crises. He also has seemed to gain super powers, going from a guy who is hard to kill to a guy that can take out a helicopter by speeding through a tunnel. Of course he gets up and walks away after doing that, and the movie starts to lose some of its mystic.
These movies work better on the smaller scale. They don't need to be the big adventures like the super hero movies. They are meant to be about a lone guy who is tough, but not powerful. He has to fight against a bigger group that is up to no good. These aren't movies about a vigilante, these are movies about someone who just has a job to do and is trying to get it done without getting killed in the process.
Ultimately it is just a difference in the styles of the time. A couple of decades ago it was okay to show an average guy in an unusually situation. Now, with the advent of super-hero movies and an ability to do more with special effects, every action movie is made with an eye to massive explosions and not to making a good underdog story.
The Die Hard movies are all pretty solid action movies. They are meant to be taken as escapism and that is what they are. The new movie isn't awful, but it is just proof that those movies can't be made the same way that they used to be. Let John McClain go into retirement and bring Bruce Willis back as a badass cop in a new movie series. - 40732
The first pits a single cop, John McClain, against a group of terrorists/robbers. The main bad guy, played by a very stylish Alan Rickman, is the perfect example of the over the top, pure evil bad guy that we like to see fall out of a window at the end of the movie. What is great is that even though John has to fight everyone on his own, he spends the whole movie trying to get anyone else to come and help him. This gives the movie a sense of realism, as well as telling us that John doesn't think he can really take out everyone on his own, even though that is what ends up happening, though it does happen largely through luck.
The second movie gets a little more outlandish. John happens to be at the site of another terrorists/robbery scheme and happens to be the one that is able to stop them before anything truly bad happens. He is a little more gung ho in this movie, but he still tries to get as much help as possible from anyone else who is around.
The third movie does a good job of being really over the top. There is a lot that is happening in the movie, and John is caught in the middle, although this time because the bad guy calls him out personally. Still, the movie is a good balance of humor and action and wasn't so over the top on action as to be ridiculous.
The fourth movie takes on most of the nation. John goes from being a cop on a certain beat to having to try to be everywhere and stop a national crises. He also has seemed to gain super powers, going from a guy who is hard to kill to a guy that can take out a helicopter by speeding through a tunnel. Of course he gets up and walks away after doing that, and the movie starts to lose some of its mystic.
These movies work better on the smaller scale. They don't need to be the big adventures like the super hero movies. They are meant to be about a lone guy who is tough, but not powerful. He has to fight against a bigger group that is up to no good. These aren't movies about a vigilante, these are movies about someone who just has a job to do and is trying to get it done without getting killed in the process.
Ultimately it is just a difference in the styles of the time. A couple of decades ago it was okay to show an average guy in an unusually situation. Now, with the advent of super-hero movies and an ability to do more with special effects, every action movie is made with an eye to massive explosions and not to making a good underdog story.
The Die Hard movies are all pretty solid action movies. They are meant to be taken as escapism and that is what they are. The new movie isn't awful, but it is just proof that those movies can't be made the same way that they used to be. Let John McClain go into retirement and bring Bruce Willis back as a badass cop in a new movie series. - 40732
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Recently the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit heard a case against a Chicago woman, Cecilia Gonzalez. Online Movie Watching Spiritually I believe that learning is the key to life itself. Don't buy a shredding lead guitar player package if you've never even strummed a chord.
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