My Lord Does This Movie Rule

Rating: 10/10 (28 May 2001)

I'm the kind of guy that likes action movies, but even I can tell the difference between a good action movie, and a bad one. Die Hard 2, is purhaps the best action movie ever made. And it will be for a long time. Too many action movies revert to the same old crap plot, the same old crap villian, and the same old crap villian. Almost every action movie that has come out in the past 15 years had followed this formula: Someone the good guy loves is in trouble, The Good Guy must find a way to save him/her/it through the use of guns, explosions etc. Although Die Hard follows this formula quite perfectly, its does one thing that most other action movies have failed to do: Die Hard does not take its self seriously. This movie knows that the audience wants to see big explosions, and lots of guns, so skip past all the dramatic BS, and get to the action. Die Hard is riddled with jokes that poke fun at itself and the action movie genre. It contains continuous references to movie/tv action heros and even has room for a schwarzenegger joke. This was the first big budget movie to do this, and thats what makes this movie great.
About Die Hard 2 and Die Hard With A Vengence, those were studio pushed movies made to cash in on the success of the first. Unfortunately, its hard to make a trilogy of self satirical action movies that don't suck. Hence, in the latter 2 movies the original goal of the first was obscurred by the fact that they took themselves too seriously. We need another Die Hard, soon, or else the action genre good be as lost as Val Kilmers sense of self worth.