This movie rocks!!! It is SOOOOOO KEWL!!!!!

Thanks to this movie, I have a new favorite line, "YipeYikYay Mother******". That line is a classic. The movie is really good and the action is great! If you like Bruce Willis and action movies, then you will love this movie!

I’m just going to be quick here-DIE HARD IS FREAKING AWESOME! Sorry to shout there, but I think I needed to make my point clear. Yeah, I’m probably the one thousandth person to say that, but doesn’t that tell you something?...
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I’m just going to be quick here-DIE HARD IS FREAKING AWESOME! Sorry to shout there, but I think I needed to make my point clear. Yeah, I’m probably the one thousandth person to say that, but doesn’t that tell you something? Directed by John McTiernan who also did Predator, this is the best action film I’ve seen. It’s just a hard, no frills action film with terrific acting, excellent explosions and some tense moments. Okay, so you may have to turn off your brain, but who cares?

John McClane is a New York City detective, who is visiting LA so he can spend his Christmas with his wife Holly and two kids, who moved away from John as Holly got a big job there at Nakatomi Plaza, a 40 story office building. But when terrorists, led by Hans Gruber, take everyone who is on the 30th floor hostage and then try to steal $640,000,000 in negotiable bearer bonds from the buildings safe, now it’s up to McClane to save the hostages and kill the terrorists any way he can.

The plot in Die Hard is simple, but not brain dead like most action films similar to this. It’s pretty formulaic, but it has been so well executed that I didn’t really notice it. The ending wasn’t that predictable, with this kind of film I didn’t know what the heck was going to happen. It meant that I was at the edge of my seat, wondering what was going to happen in the end. I only knew that the lead would live as there were sequels to follow after. It isn’t completely believable at times, but it’s not god crazy or impossible. There are some nice twists and surprises to keep you guessing and these aren’t dumb either.

The lead character is John McClane, who was played by none other than Bruce Willis in his best performance I’ve seen. He is the perfect cast as the tough as nails, humorous NY cop. He’s got some of the coolest lines in the film, including the famous ‘Yippie-ki-yay, mother f***er!’ and the moment when a supervisor says ‘Attention, whoever you are. This channel is reserved for emergency calls only...’ and McClane replies ‘No f***ing s*** lady, do I sound like I’m ordering a pizza?’ Obviously, McClane drops the F bomb and uses other swear words a lot, but this is an 18+ so what do you expect? Anyways, you really like McClane with his cool lines, witty remarks and excellent use of guns. McClane is an excellent mix of cocky and mouthy, as well as heroic and cool. And Willis does an excellent performance here.

McClane’s wife is played by Bonnie Bedelia, who you may know from Fat Man and Little Boy. Another good choice in casting, the wife is a person who is obviously dedicated to her job as she moved away from her husband to do her job, though John could have gone with her. Bedelia is good at acting panicked as you did feel a sense of fear from her, with her facial expressions and actions. She also screamed a bit. Overall, she did an excellent performance.

The bad guys are played by Alan Rickman, Dennis Hayden and Clarence Gilyard Jr. Alan Rickman is the main villain, Hans Gruber. Anyone could have played the villain, so Rickman needed to prove he’s the best for the job, and he certainly did that. This villain also could have been a Bond knockoff, but it’s nothing like it. This villain is one evil son of a b****, I mean he was cold, manipulative and very dark. He is smart as well, so he doesn’t just act like a smartass, and is actually a dumbass. He puts up some very good word battles against McClane, which is a treat to watch.

Dennis Hayden is great too as Eddie, who gets a grudge against McClane for reasons I won’t spoil. He is the guy who gets the AK47 and blows up anything against him. He has a short fuse and little tolerance for pests (a.k.a McClane). Hayden is a great cast for the psycho. But the best villain is Theo, played by Clarence Gilyard Jr. who is god evil. He plays the computer geek, who needs to hack into the vault with the money. A really memorable line from him was 'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for the four **** coming in the rear in standard two-by-two cover formation.’ It made me laugh a bit.

One character that was memorable for me was a cop that was talking to McClane throughout nearly the whole film on the Radio was Sgt. Al Powell, played by Reginald VelJohnson. He was a class act throughout, as the supportive cop who doesn’t give a damn what the other cops think, he wants to stick with McClane. He did a brilliant job of acting and was a great cast as the generic cop. He also has a bit of history behind him as he’s gone from cop to office worker.

One thing that surprised me is that for a nearly 20 year old film, the effects looked brilliant. They looked real and weren’t cheap looking. There were some fantastic explosions to be had in the film, like when Willis throws down a stick of C4 down an elevator shaft, which exploded and damaged the whole floor it dropped down to, and a huge ball of flames exploded up the shaft, which was spectacular.

Also, the gun fights were excellent as well. There were pistols, AK47s and rocket launchers involved, and they all looked and sounded spectacular. The gunfire was loud, and the bullets looked great. And when they fired the Rocket Launcher at the tank, I thought I had died and had gone to heaven. It was so beautiful…

There’s some great music accompanying the film as well. The film takes place on Christmas Eve, so there was lots of Christmas themed music playing in the background, which suited the film. But when there were some tense moments, the music was really tense so it made it more exciting. And there was some relaxing music at moments too, which was a little weird at times. I was lucky to invest in the Die Hard Trilogy: Special Edition boxset, which included the three Die Hard films with extras special features. There’s some nice extras on the second disc of this version. You’ll get the generic audio commentaries (as well as text commentaries) and there’s also scene specific commentary when the visual effects producer and production designer Jackson DeGovia. On disc two there was quite a lot of neat extras to play around with. The main feature was ‘From the Vault’ which contained three things. First, there were outtakes, which included The Vault, which was a feature with lots of outtakes and bloopers. Then there was turning off the power, which is a deleted scene. Basically this was a scene where turning off the power of the Nakatomi Plaza was more ‘complicated’ it’s understandable why the scene was cut, as it would just waste more time on the film. Then there was ‘The Newscasts’ which basically show cut bits from the newscasts in the film. It was good to watch as it was interesting to see what was cut. And finally there were the magazine articles, which were basically making you read newspaper articles about the film. BORING!

Next is the Cutting Room, which lets you choose shots from different scenes of the film and create new scenes. It was good fun, as you could compare them to the film itself. Next there’s the Multi-Camera Shooting, which lets you watch two sequences from the film at different camera angles. Following is Audio Mixing, which lets you choose how high you want the music, dialogue or effects to be. Shame they only give you one scene. After there’s a feature which explains what is Letterbox and why use Letterbox. The next main feature is an interactive slideshow, which is exactly what it sounds like. This shows you pictures of Die Hard, which you can skip, rewind, pause and skip back through. It’s not much, but you’ll like it if you’re a bit bored. After is the AD campaign, which is where you’ll find your trailers and a featurette which has interviews from the cast and crew. It’s a nice feature and great to watch. Finally is The Script, which is the script for the film. It shows all the direction and dialogue, so you can now literally speak along with the film if you’re that sad. Overall, the extras are really nice and add to a brilliant film.

Die Hard is my favourite film. It’s definitely one of the best, if not the best, action film ever made. Willis is brilliant, the rest if the cast is great as well, the effects are brilliant, the action is great and the film is just very enjoyable. If you love action and haven’t seen this yet then go buy it now!

So you say you've never seen Die Hard? I beg to differ: If you've watched an action flick in the last 20 years, I guarantee you it copied some aspect of Die Hard, the grandaddy of the modern action movie. Like K-fed, its children are...
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So you say you've never seen Die Hard? I beg to differ: If you've watched an action flick in the last 20 years, I guarantee you it copied some aspect of Die Hard, the grandaddy of the modern action movie. Like K-fed, its children are everywhere...

Many have copied the formula established by Die Hard, even the franchise itself, in subsequent installments. But it has never been (and never will be) done better than in the original. Even if you've already seen it, Die Hard bears watching again-it's even better than you remember.

While you're re-watching it, just for fun, try counting all of the now-iconic touches originated in this nearly flawless product that we now take for granted as a part of the action movie playbook. Can I get a Yippee Kay-Yay, mutha!$@#*?