To celebrate the momentous release of the Bruce Willis aftershave (mostly testosterone-infused sweat, with top notes of blood, inflammable material and rosehips). We've taken the time to put together the all-time, Top Ten Die Hard Films. Simple tales of a man with a dream. A dream of running around shirtless, covered in blood and shooting at things, admittedly, but still a dream.
And to those of you who say ?but there's only four films. That's a stupid idea. You're stupid?.
We say you're just not trying hard enough. And that's exactly what the terrorists want.
Top Ten after the jump.
1. Die Hard
Well, duh. Obviously. The original and still the finest. Coming at the end of possibly the most violent of decades – the 80s – Die Hard was the ultimate expression of the ?man with a gun against everyone else in the entire world? movies that came in the wake of Rambo. The film that gave us the catchphrase that couldn't be repeated on TV, so was bowdlerised variously as ?”Yippee-ki-yay, Mister Falcon” or “Yippee-ki-yay, Melon Farmer”. The wonky accents, the glorious period hairstyles, Bruce Willis in his lovely sweaty vest. Die Hard literally has it all.
All that and it's quite simply the best Christmas movie there has ever been.
2. Die Hard
What else are you going to follow the best with? That's right, the best.
Face it; if you haven't watched back to back Die Hards, you haven't lived. Or you haven't lost the DVD remote, and been too lazy/drunk to get up and manually turn it off, which amounts to the same thing really.
3. Die Hard 2: Die Harder
This doesn't come next because it's the next best, god no, far from it. This gets the next billing because far more than any other of the films in the series the first and the second go together. Released just two years after the original it keeps much of the same atmosphere, Bruce hadn?t got old; the setting was kept almost as tight and claustrophobic as the original, even at the expense of credibility in some places. Think about it, it's a national emergency and they could only get in about 12 soldiers? Plus, the body count rose exponentially in this one. Original Die Hard had a mere 18 deaths, Die Hard 2 ? 164. It might of well have been called ?Die Pretty Easily, Come To Think Of It?.
4. Die Hard 4.0 (aka Live Free Or Die Hard)
The latest in the blockbuster series ? and hopefully the last. That is, unless anyone wants to see Bruce tottering around on a zimmer frame, shaking his fist at the neighbourhood toughs before having to thrillingly smash through his front window to race to the toilet in time before he messily soils himself on the front porch. Or it comes back in 3D. Oh, God, it's coming back in 3D isn't it?
Anyway, this follows on from number 2 pretty well. There are planes and things being blown up. You can’t see it on youtube, so here’s a rough approximation using GTA.
5. Die Hard With A Vengeance
This is where the series starts to go off the rails a little. John McClane gets a real-life buddy, he's got a whole darn city to traverse, there are far fewer explosions, and it’s not set at Christmas? They make weird stabs at race relations? God, worst of all – he has to think. A Die Hard film with puzzles?
Urg. Best to go back and watch:
6. Die Hard
Think of this as a palette cleanser. No thinking, just sheer mindless action basically reducing McClane to a bare animus, none of this fancy-dan thinking. Would he have chucked a bomb down an elevator shaft if he was thinking?
No, of course not. That's why this is better.
7. Die Hard 4.0
Now we've seen the full canon of pictures, it's worth coming back to appreciate the full scope of the latest. The series has gone from building ? airport ? city ? country; it's almost Joycean in its formal structure. Better even, as Leopold Bloom never once drove a car into a lift shaft. Unless it was in the Circe part. Damn difficult to follow that part.
Anyway, saving the country reminds me of other reason why number 3 sucked ? he went to Canada? That's not part of the US of A, you sweaty idiot.
This is basically Grand Theft Auto 3, compared to Die Hard?s Original GTA. Go anywhere, do anything, but still not better. Even though it's got a fighter jet being taken down with a road of all things.
Actually, that's probably one of the reasons why it's not better, come to think of it. In the original he probably would have kicked the plane to death.
8. Die Hard 2
Worth watching again for the period details. Look! People smoking indoors, in an airport of all places! People just strolling into the baggage area.
Also, if anyone can figure out how the underground service passages that he uses that magically manages to connect every part of the airport with every other part, please, please, let me know.
9. Die Hard
Do you really want to watch Die Hard 2 again? Another couple of hours to watch the plane explode again? Number? four? And put up with the irritating sidekick again? Number three? No, you're right. Sorry I bought it up. Have Hans Gruber’s death remixed in slow motion.
10. Die Hard
Yeah, turns out the other three films were kind of superfluous, weren't they? Not when you have this to keep you all warm and fuzzy inside
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Tom J says
Places 4 and 7 should have gone to “Die Hard”. Other than that it’s pretty much spot on.
Ralph Sanders says
Yes. Well. This *would* make more sense with the nice little video clips. Ah, well.
Damn you Monday!