Die Hard 3 it's Back to Basics.
Or perhaps more correctly it's back to complexities.
John McClane's back in New York City. He's broken up from his wife yet again, which at this point it can't be that big of a surprise.
The guy is a living magnet for terrorists and would-be criminals alike.
There's another massive terrorist threat. This time conceived by Simon Gruber the brother of Hans from the first movie.
And right away you hear that sentence and think; ''Oh this is not going to be good.''
That's a movie Trope through and through. It usually ends in disaster with bad monologues, revenge fantasies and story elements that just don't make sense. But my God if they don't make it work here.
The villain does want John McClane dead for killing his brother but it's only a secondary ambition. Really he just wants to get his hands on a billion dollars worth of gold and make a bunch of money off of a third party to destroy said gold in the ocean, but secretly keep it for himself.
Which means he's probably getting some net worth profit of half a billion from the people commissioning him along with whatever money he keeps him gold.
Very lucrative if you ask me.
Then again he probably spent around a quarter billion acquiring all of his men and equipment they needed. And than there's the techniques they have to undertake in order to make this operation work. There's an industrial digging machines, several trucks, making sure the police are too busy committing to your original threats.
This whole thing hinges on so many variables going right that it probably would never work to begin with.
But hey you've got John McClane. So why not take the chance.
He seems to increase the chances of a ridiculous plot working out, not decreasing.
Really the only reason most villains end up failing in the end is because they give John McClane the moment he needs to either Escape or take them down via some other means.
You would think that this type of story would be getting stale at this point. How many times can John McClane foil a ridiculous terrorist plot?
Well it turns out he can do it about three times.
A lot of that is helped by the introduction of Sam Jackson as his 'in your face straight man' character. The chemistry between Bruce Willis and Sam Jackson works really well.
The neutral indifference to each other if not outright hatred at one point.
And how can there not be.
That whole first 10 minutes of McClane walking around with a racial slur on his chest in the middle of Harlem is enough to make anybody distrustful of you.
I honestly thought that was going to be a bigger plot in the movie.
Before I saw Die Hard 3 I thought it was a movie about survival of John McClane. Who was thrown into the middle of New York during a lockdown with a bunch of criminals running around while he had this ridiculous sign stuck to his chest.
But no it's just a plot point to get him and Sam Jackson in the same location. Talk about a heck of an opening.
Anyways Die Hard 3 is really good.
I personally liked it more than Die Hard 2.
It's a little astounding that they were able to make three action movies of this type and keep them all relatively interesting.
And the character of John McClane is enjoyable and all of them. He's kind of a fish out of water every time but towards the end he is getting kind of used to it all. And it works here.
Your three movies in John can afford to be a little bit more of a badass character.
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