The sequel we should have received the first time

Rating: 7/10 (29 April 2017)

Die Hard with a Vengeance was released in 1995 and was directed by John McTiernan. It is the third film in the Die Hard series and is about officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) who is called into action to stop a terrorist who is detonating areas around New York City.
As someone who wasn't a big fan of Die Hard 2, this film impressed me lots and was a big improvement over the previous instalment. For me, Die Hard 2 was a rather bland action film with nothing particularly smart about it and at the same time felt too similar to the original with McClane's wife being in peril and also the fact that it too took place at Christmas, just like the first. This entry was refreshingly different and made for a great viewing experience.
The film gets off to a very strong start with brilliant pacing; we're given our situations at an expert pace and we're introduced to our characters without any slow or exposition-heavy moments. Right from the get-go, the main villain begins to play his cleverly-written game of cat-and-mouse with the heroes which was very exciting and tense. Right from the start I knew this would be much better than Die Hard 2 as it proves straight away that it has wildly different ideas and provides a whole new exciting experience.
Bruce Willis is once again great in the role of John McClane and the film doesn't slow itself down at any points to let us know what stage of his life he is in, and instead gives us the information over the course of the film which makes for a more effective way of giving us information rather than blatant exposition. Samuel L. Jackson was also great as Zeus, the person of whom John tags along with; the two had fantastic chemistry and I'd be more than happy to see them in a Die Hard film together again.
Unfortunately, after the excellent first half, the film becomes rather bland after the point where the villain stops toying around with the heroes like he did earlier and the film becomes a rather bland action picture like Die Hard 2 was. The film did maintain the expert pace and never took a minute to breathe but was not anywhere near as thrilling as the previous half was. Also, the ending of the film felt very tacked on and much like a reshoot; because that's exactly what it was. The way the scene prior to the final scene set up the ending only worked with the original ending it was expecting, however because of the studio wanting it to be changed, the ending we received feels very out of place and overall dissatisfying.
Overall, Die Hard with a Vengeance was the sequel we should have initially received instead of Die Hard 2 in my opinion and started off with many fresh ideas and constant tension as well as a brilliant pace, however most of these elements are sadly lost in the latter half and the film becomes a bland action picture towards the end. I was also dissatisfied by the new ending too and how it really didn't work at all. However, I would still recommend this film to the fans of the original Die Hard, even though the film does begin to run out of steam later on.
7.8/10