I thought this film was called "Live Free or Die Hard 2".

Oh well, it might as well be.

I'm curious if they ever plan on remaking "The Detective" and tying it into the Die Hard franchise as a prequel.

I don't understand, people actually liked the 4th one? Is bob implying that 4 was better than 5? I just don't agree.

And I don't buy the cheap sets thing. Yeah, alot of the movie takes place in derelict soviet warehouses, but modern Russia actually has tons derelict soviet warehouses lying around, and hot damn this movie gets them right, from the propaganda and soviet symbolism to the general architecture. I actually felt pangs of nostalgia watching it.

Damn, I think I have seen every previous Bruce Willis film. Curse this time of year and its lack of decent cinema!

Interestingly, this is the first Die Hard film that was actually written to be a Die Hard film. The first two were based on completely unrelated books--the first was a sequel to a book that had been been made into a 1968 film starring Frank Sinatra. The third and fourth films were screenplays floating around Hollywood where they penciled in John McClane for the main character.

luvd1:
Do people remember the broken glass scene in the first die hard? Where the bad guys realise JM is bare footed so they shoot out all the windows covering the floor with broken glass so he's trapped or has to run across the room slicing his feet to ribbons, which he does and in the next scene you see a floor covered in blood and John McClain in agony pulling glass out of his feet while smoking. And now we have him thrown from a helicopter through a glass window, fall through more glass celings and only get a graze.

I was rewatching the series recently, and I pinpointed the moment John McClane changes from vulnerable everyman to invincible superman: Halfway through Die Hard With a Vengeance (i.e. III) he's shot forty feet into the air by a high pressure waterspout and lands on the side of a road with no injuries.

punipunipyo:
Oh, I watched the one with Jet-Lee in, and I thought it was so pitiful (making Jet looking like the honorable good guy who's ass kicking the stupid cops around)I skipped all the die hard that came after that...

Jet Li wasn't in any of the Die Hard films. Were you thinking of Lethal Weapon 4?

oh man, these villians should start to pray that john mcclains grandparents doesnt get the trigger itching.

next die hard will be a mix of die hard and the movie "rv" with full fledged rockyfied hillbilly music soundtrack.

Its sad to see Bruce Willis still play in great movies (Looper) and still go for stupid cash outs like this. Die Hard should have DIED HARD a long time ago.

Uff, my fave was the 3rd one! Neither of the recent ones has a semblance to the 1rst 3, save for Bruce Willis. Why don't they call it Hostage 1 & 2 or something?

Falseprophet:

I was rewatching the series recently, and I pinpointed the moment John McClane changes from vulnerable everyman to invincible superman: Halfway through Die Hard With a Vengeance (i.e. III) he's shot forty feet into the air by a high pressure waterspout and lands on the side of a road with no injuries.

Wait, i thought he either landed on a car or a huge puddle? I won't guess the science of falling 10ft (or so) but people have been known to limp from that. And at least near the end of the movie he was shot up and got hurt during that jump on the boat so it can be forgiven

I think Bob raises a great point, where's McClain's decorated officer award or something where is his promotion? How is it no one respects or acknowledges his feets except maybe the villains?
You know what would have made this better? If he WAS promoted but had a desk job and all of a sudden he gets caught up in some gang war or something started by one of his colleges (i'm sure thats the plot to something else but...).

DH4 wasn't that bad or should I say the properly edited version. I kept watching the trailers for 5 and it didn't thrill me like 4 did something was missing, so i won't watch it till it's on DVD

Worse than Hudson Hawk? Ouch.

Oh well, I guess you won't be attending that hat convention in July.

Falseprophet:
Damn, I think I have seen every previous Bruce Willis film. Curse this time of year and its lack of decent cinema!

Interestingly, this is the first Die Hard film that was actually written to be a Die Hard film. The first two were based on completely unrelated books--the first was a sequel to a book that had been been made into a 1968 film starring Frank Sinatra. The third and fourth films were screenplays floating around Hollywood where they penciled in John McClane for the main character.

You've been reading Cracked articles, haven't you?

This movie sucking does not surprise me 1 bit. Hollywood will milk whatever it can dry. They could have done this film without relating it to Die Hard.

OK, what was that Blackwater cover a 'shop of? Because I know it can't be real. For one thing, there's a Kinect logo on it, and Blackwater wasn't still called Blackwater by the time Kinect came out.

Wait, it was real?! OK, now I'm disturbed on a number of levels...

I just realized that I saw a lot of movies with Bruce Willis in them :P

I kind of like Hudson Hawk.

piscian:
Chernobyl isn't Russian :P

That, plus Die Hard 3 wasn't even supposed to be a Die Hard movie. Think I heard that once they cast Bruce Willis, they changes a few names around and then made it into one. So that sorta makes it even more sad that the others were worse.

I came out from the cinema 1hour 45 minutes ago
As you say Bob I can't remember too much except for action, explosions and a few funny punchlines
But I still enjoy it :)
And yay for "the whole yard" movies to be on the list xD

Y'know the really sad thing? The really, REALLY sad thing?

I have seen all but the two most recent films on that list.

I kind of figured this movie was gonna be kind of crappy.

Out of all the movies you listed @ the end Bob I have seen them all except Hudson Hawk, The Whole Nine Yards, and The Whole Ten Yards.
Guess I'd better go watch them so that I can then go watch Die Hard 5 (once it inevitably comes out on HBO).

Yup, I've seen ALL those movies.

I'll go enjoy Die Hard now :)

Guys, you're missing the most important thing from all this.

Go watch 12 Monkeys, dammit.

Well good to know. Though oddly enough the intermission this week was why I liked 4 over 2. I was entertained enough that I didn't notice the flaws. Though will agree 1,3,2,4,5 is the way when judged on quality of them. Was nice to cap off watching 1,2,and 3(which were all on cable this week) with your review. Thank you on the reminder for Looper. I haven't seen that one yet. Then again Wrek it Ralph is a higher priority then Looper is all.

They somehow survive falling out of/thorough a building twice? LOL wasn't that the entire setup/joke of "The Other Guys"? The fact that action heroes in so many movies break suspension of disbelief just a few times to many?

that is crazy that ive actually seen all but 3 of the listed bruce willis movies... XD well this one will be 4

I get the strange feeling that part of Hollywood just hasn't received the memo that people expect more. Sure there was a time when you could just run out anything with a big name star and loads of explosions and it would be good enough. But people found out that even action films can be more than just dumb mindless fun. I'm often stuck thinking well this film might have been good back in the 80's but compared to the good stuff now it just looks horrible.

Wow, this movie is shockingly bad. The movie is full of plot holes and it's completely out of character with the original Die Hard. The direction is awful, the actors look like they weren't actually in the same room when they talk to each other (which is possible, but still not excuse for such poor performances), the cuts are jerky, inconsistent and sometimes out of sequence. The script is horrible, needlessly gimmicky and worst of all, completely uninteresting.
Oh, and the "I'm on vacation" line gets old after about the 23rd time he says it... AND HE WASN'T EVEN ON VACATION IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Btw. the most laughable plot hole, at least IMO is when they...

--SPOILERS AHEAD--

...steal a car from (most likely) the Chechen mafia and then decide to DRIVE to Chernobyl. The very next scene places them near the (usually completely closed down and under military surveillance) Chernobyl power plant That means they make a 13 hour road trip during which they have to cross the Russia-Ukraine border while still bruised and bloodied, and driving a stolen car with a trunk full of automatic rifles.

Wait, chernobyl is in Russia now? *checks wikipedia* Okay, I'm not crazy. It's in Ukraine, which has not been the USSR for a long time, and definitely not Russia.

Die Hard was cool because back in those days they knew how to make action movies like these. Not anymore. Really, you guys need to see "The Raid: Redemption" just to remember how awesome action movies CAN be. You can tell from the trailers that this movie is a just a flashy waste of time.

Which is a shame because Willis is still the best action hero actor of the old guard. Just look at Looper, those few moments with him fraking up everybody were pure bliss.

What Bob said about McClane always bugged the hell out of me too and is a question I've asked out loud before. How is this man not touted as a national treasure by now? He's saved how many cities and how many lives and he's still just a detective? The man should be able to make a paper-mache house out of all the accommodation he's accumulated throughout the years and he's still just walking the beat? How is there not a "John McClane Day" by now? How does he not have at least a advert for Glock guns? The biggest problem with the Die Hard series is that the world around McClane rarely acknowledges his existence even though anyone else in his place would have ceased to exist a long time ago.

Ugh....just had the fortune of watching this pile of mindbogging non-creativity. And now....I'm depressed. Really. There is literally nothing outstanding in this movie - everything is just one giant mass of explosions, garbled cars and bad exchanges between Bruce Willies and that other guy. Not a single interesting character. The twist is dumb and the "Wahhh! You never cared about me, dad. So let's shoot some bad guys together to mend our broken family" is the very definition of an overused setpiece. It's annoying, its dumb, lacks any kind of self-reflection and the action is beyond uninspired.

Usually I wouldn't have really minded and just shoved it off as a bad movie, but its just so depressing to see a movie series whose first three entries were great turn into this money grabbing mess. But....that's what one gets when studios want to reuse old franchises I guess....meh....

Or in other words: I agree with Moviebob.

Why can't more movies I watch be like Cloud Atlas?

As a professional Russian I find it my duty to point out the mistakes.

- The taxi driver knowing English and then letting John leave without paying.
While the traffic jams are too accurate. Most of Moscow's taxi drivers are actually immigrants from the East, so them speaking proper Russian is good. And they are known to command huge prices. Especially if from the airport.

-The main politician villain was aiming for... what again? Mayor of Moscow?
That would get him nowhere. You might've heard about Russia's Putin and how he is supposedly strict. Well he's backed up by a system. One renegade guy is nothing. I mean this isn't Val Verde. This! Is! Russia!

-Guns in the car trunk near the club.
Ok this looks all too stupid to an actual Russian. The thing is, Russia doesn't have gun licenses outside of hunting ones. Bodyguards and mafia might pack handguns, but they sure as hell don't have trunks full of them in cars. The funnier thing is that just recently a guy fired a traumatic gun into the sky on a wedding in Moscow and all the cops were on his tail like immediately and got the gun laws even tighter.

- And the biggest of them all... Driving to Chernobyl.
Ok, just take a map and look at where those two are. No seriously do it. They drove all of that in one night or so. And the Maybach may prove pretty useless on the Russian roads. Cause this isn't a German autobahn. This would be bumpy as hell. Also the countryside petrol would kill the maybach.
Also Chernobyl is in Ukraine, which many of you might not know (apparently you don't) is a different country. So Willis would have to cross a national border in a stolen car full of guns with no passport.
And even if he got through that he'd have to get into Chernobyl, which is kinda locked down due to radiation.

The next logical step: Bruce Willis punches ghosts in "Are You a God? Then Die Hard!"