Quote:
Originally Posted by Tommy Jarvis
Die Hard 1988 ★★★★★
Let's get this out of the way first: yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Of course. What else would it be?
It's also one of the last in a legendary series of action blockbusters. When John McClane was the believable everyman blue collar hero before he turned into an Expandables-ish caraicature of himself. When action movies focused on followable entertainment, before The Matrix introduced the era of cookie cutter CGI where your brain automatically tunes out after five minutes.
Filled from start to finish with witty and funny dialogue. From the pizza-line to welcome to welcome the party. And of course the infamous yippikayay-line. Uttered by Bruce Willis as a joke, thinking it would never make it to the final cut. It ended up being the signature phrase of the franchise and milked to death in the sequels. How about that?
And last but not least: the villain. The late great Alan Rickman delivers his first career making performance as the suave and ruthless gentleman robber Hans Gruber. Filling every moment on screen with equal parts charisma and menace. – Hans! Boopee! – *Bang*
Did I mention five star classic?
|
We watched this on Christmas Day and You are right...***** all the way, one of the best. I would like to have seen John give Hans a sucker punch to make him let go of Holly, but that's a minor quibble.
TRESPASS (1992). Two Arkansas firefighters are given a homemade map showing the location of gold in East St Louis and decide to get a hold of, not knowing they will end up in a definitely "wrong Place, Wrong Time" scenario; indeed his could almost be a "gangsta" version of THREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Some good performances (mostly by the late and still missed Bill Paxton) but a little too long . ***