Somewhat Original, but Feels Pretty Redundant In the Process

Rating: Null/10 (18 April 2000)

It's very obvious that Die Hard With a Vengeance is trying to move away from the type of formula that was found in the first two films. It doesn't set around Christmas and the action moves around a city rather than setting itself around one particular building. But there are still several aspects that are considerably similar to the original. There's German terrorist, a plot about an estranged marriage, and a situation that involves being down to only two bullets. There are some involving elements towards the way the action is structured at first. The action and/or tension seems to be based on puzzles and riddles. There are numerous large-scale, well-crafted action sequences that can stand-out but at the same time, the story seems to lose some steam towards the middle (not to mention that the pacing on certain occasions, really bogs down) to the point were a gets to a climax that's not really stimulating. Certain aspects in Die Hard With a Vengeance grows a bit tiresome after a while. First and foremost, the profanity throughout ultimately feels like a really worn-out conversational piece rather than being the exclamation point of a line. Even the "Yippie Ki Yay..." line isn't very effective because the way it's presented simply feels too obligatory and seemingly thrown in at the very last minute. Secondly, while Die Hard With a Vengeance also tries to move away from the formula of having one person taking on the terrorist to having two, the movie obviously allows itself to seriously fall into typical cliches of cop/buddy type of movies in which the cops reluctantly work with each other but slowly begin to accept one other as the movie progress.