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July 10, 2007
Die Hard: with a Vengeance (1995)
It took me about a month to finish this movie, just because Ric kept falling asleep or distracting me with Lost episodes. The third of the Die Hard series, this one doesn't put any of NY officer McClane's family members in peril. Instead, his unwilling sidekick, Zeus, has little nephews or something, and they're in a school that's been threatened to blow up. Our bad guy is Simon, brother to the first movie's villain, Hans. Simon is messing with McClane mostly because he can rather than paying him back for his brother's death. By predicting McClane's actions (as well as all emergency services of New York), he can cause a distraction and go for the gold, literally.
With Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Irons jumping on screen this time around, McClane is almost less interesting just because he's sharing so much screen time with other people who are bigger stars than in the first two movies. In those, McClane did almost everything on his own, which is what I liked so much about him. He had help from a couple of guys, but he did the biggest stunts on his own. This time, he's more dependent on Zeus to get through some of the tough times. It's not bad, just less exciting to me. But, having Zeus along is fun because the complaining nature of both men combined makes for some good comedy. I could have done without the race relations dialog though. Zeus asking if McClane thinks he can pick a lock because he's black is just a lame joke.
Jeremy Irons is always entertaining, and he definitely feels like a threatening personality, but his terrorist threats seem a bit less scary than in the first two movies. Somehow, stealing gold wasn't all that much of a fright to me, when compared to a bunch of planes running out of fuel mid-air. Still, Irons pulls it off, even though his evil-looking girlfriend is a complete waste of film-time.
Luckily, the stunts and performances by the main cast make it all worthwhile. I love how Simon keeps McClane and Zeus running around with timed deadlines and riddles. The taxi cab drive through Central Park and the trucking adventure into the aqueducts deliver plenty of fun as well. This one's not my favorite of the series, but I still had a good time watching it.
Posted by Jeri 
at 06:07:28 pm | movies, netflix/tivo
4 comments
I like the flick simply because of Samuel L.'s presence, but Chris made a good point when we were talking about it yesterday; It's not really a Die Hard movie. Like you said, in the first two McClane is doing everything on his own and that's what makes him bad ass. As Chris put it, they turned it into a Buddy Cop flick. I think 4 reached a happy medium and returned McClane back to his old self. 
The "evil-looking girlfriend" was none other than Sam Phillips, aka Leslie Phillips, a contemporary Christian singer from the 80s and early 90s. She changed her name to Sam in the mid-90s. Her last album was released in 2004. 
I have to admit, I did not like "how Simon keeps McClane and Zeus running around with timed deadlines and riddles" because it felt like what the Riddler does to test Batman's IQ in the Animated Series.In Dirty Harry, his running to payphones by deadlines doesn't seem as bad because there aren't brainteasers along the way.
But admittedly this DH3 wasn't written as a Die Hard movie originally, but was called Simon Says and the first is practically identical to the original except for name changes.
However the fourth Die Hard was also adapted from another script before it became a McClane movie, and felt to me like a good version of DH3.
I mean to say "the first HALF is practically identical" to the Simon Says script. 
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