Die Hard (1988)
Directed by John McTiernan
High above the city of L.A. a team of terrorists has seized a building, taken hostages, and declared war. One man has manages to escape... An off-duty cop hiding somewhere inside. He's alone, tired... and the only chance anyone has got.
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What critics compared Die Hard to
It's the sequel to 2013's Olympus Has Fallen, which was itself a spiritual sequel to Die Hard: one building, one terrorist group, too many hostages, and one walkie-talkie-taunting badass who can save the day.
Well maybe not YOU specifically — but because moviegoers around the world contributed to the 2013 “Die Hard” ripoff “Olympus Has Fallen” earning more than $160 million at the box office, we now get a sequel, which as you might have surmised from the title is set mostly in London.
“ Olympus Has Fallen ” was a pornographically violent crapfest that took the standard “ Die Hard ” template, located it within the confines of a White House being attacked by Korean terrorists and tried to use such sights as the White House in flames, hundreds of corpses on the front lawn and the female Secretary of Defense being brutally beaten as the inspiration for the ensuing orgy of shootings, stabbings, neck-breakings and quips delivered by star Gerard Butler.
London Has Fallen is essentially a siege movie, modeled after the greatest siege movie ever made: Die Hard .
London Has Fallen, the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen is simply the latest in the tradition of "Die Hard in a..." films.
It was enough to keep the movie from clicking when it tried to shift into quippy “Die Hard” mode.
Unlike so many '90s films, though, the form that WHD takes is not exactly " Die Hard in an X", with X referring in this case to the White House; it was this exact tack taken by this spring's Olympus Has Fallen , a cheaply-made rushed knock-off of WHD that, as it turns out, is almost precisely at the same quality level as the movie it was copying, though for different reasons.
Director Roland Emmerich takes a break from blowing up the entire world (and completely blowing Anonymous ) to direct this Die Hard knock-off without shame, and he’s perfectly suited to the material, transforming a concept that Olympus Has Fallen made gruff and violent into an over the top crowd-pleaser.
While there’s more than a little of a “Die Hard” vibe here (more than in “Die Hard 5,” actually), Emmerich and screenwriter James Vanderbilt wisely don’t try to turn Tatum into a junior Bruce Willis.
White House Down is yet another take on the old Die Hard formula, with more than a few nods to the fun Air Force One (1997) and to Emmerich's own Independence Day (1996).
With its Die Hard -in-the-White-House premise already taken out in a pre-emptive strike by Olympus Has Fallen earlier this year, White House Down suddenly had to do more than just rely on its high concept.
You see, the bad guys have also brought along a computer hacker (Jimmi Simpson)—one of the evil kind who, in an apparent nod to Die Hard , enjoys blasting Beethoven symphonies as he cracks the NORAD missile launch codes, one by one.
The obvious reference point here is Die Hard , with Gerard Butler stepping awkwardly into Bruce Willis' shoes as Mike Banning, the man trying to single-handedly thwart a hostage situation from the inside.
And not since the original Die Hard (1988) have we seen a film that plays so much like, well, the original Die Hard, with so many plot points lifted and transcribed into the new setting that one could play a potentially lethal drinking game putting away shots every time you spot one (“I spy Robert Forster in the Paul Gleason role!,” “I spy the scene where overconfident military commandos try and fail to take back the building with badly misguided force!”).
Olympus Has Fallen follows the Die Hard formula right down to the letter, but with little of the style of that 1988 Bruce Willis classic.
There's irony to be found in the recognition that the best Die Hard to be released in 2013 isn't the franchise's official entry, A Good Day to Die Hard , but the White House-based copycat, Olympus Has Fallen.
There are some slick action sequences that bolster this flag-waving crowd-pleaser from director Antoine Fuqua ( Training Day ), yet the cookie-cutter script seems more content to rip-off ideas from Die Hard and other superior thrillers.
The movie is “Die Hard” in the White House, a combination of the violent and the cheesy which may nevertheless push a few buttons.
It’s also here that the action-movie hero vibe that Wingard attempted to bring to Kong’s character really comes out in full force — there’s a direct quote to Bruce Willis in Die Hard in here, which the director has acknowledged as an influence on his behavior in the Ape’s behavior in these slugfests — and it’s genuinely a lot of fun to watch this unmoveable object meet up with this unstoppable force.
Amusingly, the ape has been written to be something of everyman here, like Die Hard ’s John McClane, to the point he even gets his own leaping-out-of-the-way-of-an-explosion moment.
There are scenes and images that recall everything from Flash Gordon (1980) to Die Hard (1988).
Between introducing all of these characters—and I see that I have neglected to mention both Apex’s shadowy tech genius (Shun Oguri) and Madison’s worried dad (Kyle Chandler)—it takes about 40 minutes or so for the first confrontation between the titular creatures (who have some ancient rivalry that is often whispered about but never exactly explained), a punch-up at sea that finds Kong busting out a couple of “Die Hard”-style moves before essentially ending in a draw.
Wingard also throws in references to the likes of Die Hard and the Lethal Weapon series, as well as countless Showa-era Godzilla efforts, most specifically those from the 1960s and ’70s.
(I’m told the creature’s movements were modeled on Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” and there’s even a “Lethal Weapon 2” reference for us elderly folks in the audience.)
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The homages to hugely popular pictures are crystal clear, but the genre-spoofing moviemakers have done their homework – scenes derived from “First Blood,” “Die Hard,” “Lethal Weapon,” Sergio Leone’s “The Man With No Name” trilogy, “Straw Dogs,” “Chinatown,” “Brannigan,” and countless others are lampooned with varying degrees of subtlety, each being every bit as amusing, especially for eagle-eyed action connoisseurs.
Aside from the obvious nepotism Danny's name might imply, he's also got a rather casual relationship with reality, having informed his police sensibilities with every American Cop Movie from Dirty Harry to Lethal Weapon to Die Hard... but his favorites (and the ones both laughingly paid tribute to and viciously skewered by Hot Fuzz) are Bad Boys II and Point Break.
With pages, not to mention exploding fireballs, taken from such seminal shoot-'em-up classics as Bad Boys, Die Hard and Point Break, Hot Fuzz turns the quaint, cobblestone streets of staid Olde England into a madcap mess of mayhem and murder.
The Matrix series, the Die Hard Series, the Lethal Weapon series, and John Woo’s films are only the tip of the iceberg.
Sure, everyone is fawning over Superbad, which was OK, but if you’re an action movie fan, especially of stuff along the lines of Die Hard or Lethal Weapon you really need to see this movie.
Wright and Pegg love the Bad Boys and Die Hards of the cinematic world as much as any fanboy, and it shows in every stunt and gag -- from the genre's omnipresent homoeroticism to scenes of cops filling out paperwork edited frantically enough to give Tony Scott a seizure.
But if Carry-On works, it's because Ethan is an everyday person in the same way John McClane was an everyday guy in the first three Die Hard movies.
Taron Egerton would no doubt very much appreciate it if you would take the bait and compare his new, holiday-adjacent Netflix action thriller Carry-On to Die Hard … or perhaps Die Hard 2, actually.
When Nora further urges him to give his dream another shot, Ethan decides to try putting more effort into his life by petitioning his boss, Phil (Dean Norris), for a more important shift working baggage inspection on Christmas Eve.
Carry-On does not, in other words, find Ethan at the same point in his life that Die Hard finds John McClane.
Their conception owed quite a bit to comic books and to serialized television like "24" (James Bond by way of " Die Hard ").
Some of the bigger plot elements feel reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, and early scenes between Bond and the cantankerous M would not be out of place in Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, or any of a million other Rogue Cop flicks of the 1980s.
But the actors always cohere within strict limits to a template: a white British male (although rumors persist that he won’t always be white), taciturn but prone to the odd wisecrack, unstoppably athletic but unflappable, self-contained enough to go through hell without ever breaking a sweat, and always ready to slip back into a fresh tux (can you imagine Bond smeared with grit in a singlet, like Bruce Willis in Die Hard ?).
This goes far beyond the lengths he’ll go for sex and alcohol, but even to seeing Daniel Craig perform stunts including an Aston Martin sponsored parachute escape, or a plane crashing on a mountaintop that could easily be pulled from a new Die Hard or Transporter film.
Think "Die Hard" crossed with one of those old karate movies they used to show on Sunday afternoon on WGNO-TV back in the '80s -- and then add an obscene level of violent bloodshed -- and you've got a good idea of what's in store.
But a vertical environment has different rules, and cities have been the setting for game-changing flicks such as "Die Hard" and "Oldboy."
The plot setup is in the vein of "Assault on Precinct 13" and " Die Hard " (among many others), but plot is hardly the point.
Have you ever wondered what "Die Hard" would be like if John McClane knew how to roundhouse-kick people in the face and disarm bloodthirsty, machete-wielding henchmen?
—Mad Dog, Take the closed-set claustrophobia of Die Hard, add the gritty cops versus gangsters nihilism of Assault on Precinct 13, and blend in some Indonesian machete-fu and — voila!
Writer-editor-director Gareth Huw Evans stages "The Raid's" 15 floors of mayhem as if he tossed "Hard Boiled," "Supercop" and "Die Hard" into a blender and hit purée.
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A cinematographer for more than 30 years, De Bont has worked frequently with fellow Dutchman Paul Verhoeven and has been behind the camera on such big-time action pictures as "Die Hard," "The Hunt for Red October," "Black Rain" and "Lethal Weapon 3."
"Speed," directed by Jan De Bont (cinematographer on "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon 3"), isn't a movie so much as a driver's-seat video game.
First-time director De Bont (cameraman of Die Hard and Basic Instinct) makes good use of a hand-held camera and conveys a real sense of volition: you'll believe a bus can fly!
Yes, it's "Die Hard" on a bus, but that's a pretty good bloodline.
He conspicuously lacks charm -- he has none of the bemused irony that made Alan Rickman's terrorist so deliciously attractive in "Die Hard."
The directorial debut of acclaimed cinematographer Jan De Bont, Speed--made for the paltry (considering the complexity of the shoot: real elevator shafts; real freeway lanes; real subway cars) sum of $28 million--is nothing less than a thing of alchemy: De Bont would go on to helm the abominations Twister, Speed 2: Cruise Control, and The Haunting ; screenwriter Graham Yost (son of TVOntario's "Saturday Night at the Movies" host Elwy Yost) subsequently scripted Broken Arrow (John Woo's worst film) and Hard Rain (a steaming turd); Reeves and Bullock last gave us Sweet November and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood , respectively; and if the sub-genre of Die Hard rip-offs had run its course by the time Speed came around, consider that Speed is, after all, Die Hard on a bus, a claustrophobic one-man-against-one-terrorist-in-a-limited-location thriller.
That's it: just one long chase up a skyscraper, an idea simple enough to have served as the basis for one of the greatest of all action films, Die Hard , as well as the Indonesian The Raid: Redemption , which was in U.S. theaters earlier this year; it's also the central idea behind most of the brawler arcade games of the 1990s, which Dredd practically is already - it even has two playable characters.
“Die Hard” and last year’s Indo-Australian thriller “The Raid” are versions of this set-up that work.
It's the Die Hard formula transferred into the future.
Setting an action film within a contained space is an excellent way to keep it tight and thrilling, but it's also a risk, since the formula has been done well so many times-- Die Hard set the standard, and films as recent as this year's The Raid have improved upon it.
Set almost entirely within a single high rise building, it invokes memories of Die Hard.
It and Dredd follow frighteningly similar plot lines, and both shoot-'em-ups owe Die Hard for their lock-down, knock-down conceit.