Die Hard (1988)

Still enjoyable after all these years

The movie itself still rocks. The Blu-Ray edition only has a lot of different commentaries for extras - no bloopers and deleted scenes, but it's still worth the money. June 11, 2008

Sharing My View

I love Bruce Willis and anything that he is featured in. I am enjoying the video and thank Amazon and the vendor for their good service. June 9, 2008

the guy at the wrong place at the wrong time...what more can you ask!

Die Hard is the action movie that reinvented action. Before Die Hard there really wasn't any action heroes; I mean besides Rambo, Die hard created the Epitome of the new era of action. And this can be proven with the many imitations that followed Die Hard's success. Such titles include Speed (Die Hard on a bus) Under Siege (Die Hard on a boat) and Passenger 57 (Die Hard on a plane) all of these movies were made prior to the success of Die Hard

Die Hard's story is known by practically everyone. But for those who are unfamiliar here it goes. John McCLane is a New York Police Officer, he is on his way to Los Angeles to visit his wife and children to celebrate Christmas together...but there is something wrong, a group of professional terrorists...Or better say thieves are taking hostage of a whole building. And in this building McLane's wife is also among the group. The thieves are prepared and have everything planned out. They have weaponry, technology, and professional men...but there is one thing they weren't counting on...John McClane. He is in the building and ready to rock. Die hard till this day is one of the best and probably the best action movie ever made, and it's probably because it's a fresh story, we can relate to the character. He is a character who gets the job done but doesn't want to be there, he just does what he has to do because there is no other choice. And also we have someone who bleeds; we see every bruise, every cut. The character is human so it feels real. These are the qualities that make die hard till this day one of the best action movies of all time. This is a must own by all movie fans out there. "Yippee Cay-Yay.

MY PERSONAL RATING: 5 OUT OF 5
June 2, 2008

incompetant

They made the dialog so low and the sound effects so high, you can't listen to the dialog without having gun scenes disturb all your neighbors. You can't turn the gun sounds low without not being able to hear the dialog. Truly bad disc made unwatchable by poor picture and poor sound. June 1, 2008

"The" action movie to own

Forget this being the best Die Hard film of the current four-film series, this is arguably the number one action film ever created. It is hard to believe this is over 20 years old, but honestly as the saying goes...they just don't make them like they used to. While the recent "Live Free or Die Hard" was more than I expected and quite an action blast, it still could not surpass the level of the original, which is a very easy watch even by today's standards.

The story and plot are simple, about terrorists taking over the "Nakatomi Plaza" building, yet amusingly, many films have borrowed this idea dozens of times over (especially B-movies) for an excuse to present some comparable action. The end results generally have been laughable in comparison to the level of quality that Die Hard has pulled this off with. This is definelty about tremendous action, but its also about Bruce Willis as "John McClane" - the hero who can most likely can be found on any list of top movie heroes of all time. Plus you have Alan Rickman as the movie's main villain "Hans Grubber" who without a doubt, goes down as one of the best movie villains as well. On the sidelines is the sympathetic cop played by Reginald Veljohnson (who ironically went on to play a cop on the tv series Family Matters) who grabs your attention along the way with his loyal support of John (and the two never even meet face to face till film's end). Even the boss' gang of men seemed quite intelligent for the most part, and are not the typical goons you might usually expect from similar movies. Each man gave McClane a good fight at some point, whether it was guns a'blazing or fist pounding, wall-smashing one on one's.

As exceptional as some of the characters are, and the incredible details director John McTiernan makes out of a rather simple plot, its really the action this film offers that keeps us on our toes. The excitement actually begins sooner than I thought in the film, and I wondered how the remaining almost two hours was going to keep me engaged, but McTiernan pulls it off with action scene after action scene nearly every step of the way. More than anything else, there is a "ton" of gunfire throughout the film, and if you have a decent audio system, it actually sounds better than most shootouts in films. If you are like me and you prefer the more manly approch of raw fist pounding fights, there are not a whole lot, but several that should satisfy with decent intensity (let's just say bodies smash into things often in the fights). Like explosions? Oh yes, Die Hard is well known for them. I can't count how many explosions are shown on a tv commercial for this film.

It took me over 20 years to finally watch this film. I highly doubted Die Hard was gonna live up to today's standards of action, but boy does it by actually making some of today's films feel like they are missing something that this classic has offered. Action fans - Die Hard is an absolute must OWN, not rent, not borrow, but own.

Action - 5
Acting - 4
Characters - 5
Story - 4
Overall - 5 April 23, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...