It's boom-time in the Big Apple.

Rating: 10/10 (18 August 2012)

Summer 1995, what a time to be an impressionable 14-year-old. I pity kids these days who are bombarded with CGI PG-13 garbage when I had Die Hard 3, Waterworld, and Under Siege 2 to warp my young mind. It was an eventful summer, but Die Hard with a Vengeance was THE big release for me.
Set five years after the lackluster Die Harder, McClane is now back with the NYPD, only he's been suspended for being a miserable, smelly drunk - making him even more of an underdog hero. Basically, he's got no dignity left, but Hans Gruber's brother Simon still intends to cast him down even further.
A department store in Manhattan goes boom, proving that Simon has the firepower and the moxie to deliver his threats. If McClane can jump through humiliating hoops for him in a high-stakes game of 'Simon Says' the day will end with no further explosions, but the tasks Simon sets for him are virtually impossible, making McClane suspicious that the revenge plot is just a ruse for something bigger.
In the course of his ritual humiliation McClane meets Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson in his 3rd of many movies with Willis), a Harlem handyman who he strikes a tenuous but eventually warm friendship with. Together they tear through New York, a wide-open playground filled with outrageous set-pieces in pursuit of Simon.
John McTiernan (a REAL Die Hard director) stages some ruthless action scenes, perfectly edited, perfectly shot, and with some clever touches you might not notice if you switch your brain off. Die Hard 3 is a template for how proper, R-rated action films should be made. One thing I particularly like is that McTiernan keeps all of the action shot from a pedestrian point of view. There's virtually no establishing shots of New York, a city already overdone with helicopter flyover shots to transition two scenes together. Peter Menzies' wonderful anamorphic Panavision photography, with its naturalized color pallet and wide angles is a million miles away from how action movies are shot these days. Future filmmakers need to study how older, better movies were made and John McTiernan's Die Hard movies are the best examples.
Also returning for the third time is Michael Kamen, delivering a fun, exciting score that is made even more enjoyable thanks to his completely wonderful rendition of 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home'. Wisecracks, humor, swearing, blood squibs, a great villain, and a smart story - this IS a summer action movie, and the last true Die Hard film.
And keep a lookout for an appropriate Loaded Weapon reference.