A great 90's action movie

Rating: 8/10 (16 August 2015)

Die Hard with a Vengeance brings back John McTiernan as the director and brings back some more of the original Die Hard elements. For example John McClane is separated from his wife putting him down on his luck again. He got suspended from the NYPD and starts the film off hung-over. So bottom line he doesn't start off very happy.
This time instead of being in a single small area, he's in NYC. The setting always gets bigger. A new villain emerges; Simon (Jeremy Irons), who is setting off bombs around NYC. He threatens with more explosions unless John plays Simon Says (get it). However John McClane isn't the guy in wrong place at the wrong time, as Simon specifically asks for McClane to play Simon says. Instead the guy in the wrong place at the wrong time is Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson). He saves McClane from one of Simon's games that gets ugly quickly and gets stuck having to join McClane on the game of Simon Says to protect NYC from Simon's explosives.
One of the best things of the movie is McClane and Zeus' relationship. It is highly entertaining. They argue, they complain, curse, and help each other. McClane also has more conversations with the villain than Die Hard 2. Since they are always talking to Simon for him to give them their next mission, they'll usually have some good exchanges. Die Hard with a Vengeance adds the tradition that all future Die Hard films need to give McClane a sidekick. Zeus is probably the best sidekick McClane gets.
Simon seems like a Bond villain. He comes up with a lot of overly complicated ways to kill McClane and enjoys toying with him instead of killing him. Since a lot of bad guys have the chance to kill the hero but don't kill them in a lot of movies (like Karl from the first one) it does give an excuse as to why Simon doesn't kill McClane when he has the chance.
The acting is still good, the action as always is fun, the film has a couple of chuckles here and there, and some great suspenseful scenes. But one thing that just didn't stick well with me was the ending. It just felt out of place and tacked on in the end. From what I read, it sounded like they had a couple of problems on how to end it so I'm not surprised this ending felt rushed. It wasn't bad per say, but seemed as if they didn't want the villain to win so they just said, "Let's just have McClane find Simon and take him out cause we can't have the villain win." But at the end of the day Die Hard with a Vengeance is a great 90's action film that is a great sequel to the original that I highly recommend.