I remember the months and years leading up to the release of this movie had some very unpleasant moments. First off the reveal of the title. I would say most people were unhappy with it. Even to this day I'm not completely used to it. Then again I'm sure Die Harder and Die Hard With A Vengeance all sounded pretty fucking stupid at the time. So maybe this title is like a fine wine and will get better with age.
Another shocking revelation along the release path, and the one many people still hold against this movie, is the rating. PG thirfuckingteen. Nobody could believe that. How could a Die Hard movie not have an R rating? Hell the franchise's catchphrase has motherfucker in it! How would that ever work?! Well kudos to them because they pulled it off and made that shit work.
This is a damn good movie. I saw it for the first time right after Transformers and felt it was far superior. Those robots have nothing on John McClane. They can keep their confusing fights and Even Stevens guy and lame humour. I'll take this one any day.
Same as with Harrison Ford and the new Indiana Jones (except this one is a good movie) it's just great to see Bruce Willis back in his most famous role. Not only that, it's like he hasn't missed a beat. He falls immediately back into the role and you know right away you're watching that character. Age be damned he still looks good kicking ass and still has the perfect delivery of all those lines.
Even Justin Long does well in the role of the funny sidekick. This could have been a fucking disaster but he makes the character pretty likable and not that whiny. His sarcasm also finds that perfect balance between actually funny and "holy shit Bruce eat that kid!"
Tim Oliphant as the villain is ok, but the weakest in the Die Hard series. I do like his overall plan and he has a few awesome moments ("come on, say something funny") but he feels a little underdeveloped and at times, generic.
The action, while certainly far-fetched, is top-notch. My two favourite sequences would have to be the tunnel and the elevator, but it's all good. Yes the stuff with the fighter jet is pretty god damn ridiculous, but it's also pretty god damn entertaining so it's all ok.
As for the rating, well it's a very hard PG-13 so that helps. No blood or swearing, but still plenty of violence. Plus if you get the unrated DVD it puts all of the language right back in there. It's pretty stupid at times because you can tell they just looped the word "fuck" over some of the scenes. Most of the time Bruce's mouth doesn't even match what he is saying, and sometimes it clearly isn't moving at all. It does put the iconic line back in though, which adds like 6 points right there.
This movie had so many things that could have made it terrible. The rating, the sidekick, but it all works out and they went against the odds and made a damn good movie. It's not better than the first Die Hard, not even close, but I would rank it above the second and it would be pretty damn close with the third.
8.5/10
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