Vengeance Is Mine

While I've seen the original Die Hard a few times, I'd never seen any of the sequels until this most recent Christmas, when I watched the far inferior Die Hard 2. Now I can add to that the also-inferior-though-not-quite-as-much Die Hard With a Vengeance.

This third installment of the franchise isn't without its delights. The movie does seem to know how silly it is, and plants its tongue satisfyingly in cheek. For all its flaws, it remains mostly fun throughout.

The pairing of Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson is simply great. There's solid chemistry there (a fact M. Night Shyamalan would recognize and leverage later for Unbreakable). And then, of course, there's the basic thrill of watching both of them (especially Jackson) curse up a storm.

Things blow up good. While this doesn't always literally take the form of explosions (though for the moments that matter most, it does), mayhem abounds. Mad driving through Central Park, a spectacular subway crash, huge trucks driving through sewer tunnels.... the action is inspired and different, and generally works. The backbone of this franchise is to watch Bruce Willis slowly get beat up over two hours, and this movie knows it.

But there's also a quality here like a gushing fire hose with no one holding onto it. The plot sprays everywhere without thought, twisting in nonsensical ways just to get to the next moment. There's a little of connective tissue in the form of a riddling villain, but it is a patently ludicrous conceit. Willis and Jackson become some sort of Everyman version of Batman and Robin, made to suffer hijinks and solve problems every bit as laughable as Adam West and Burt Ward faced. What writer/director/studio exec really thinks that the "get 1 gallon of water from a 3- and 5-gallon jug" puzzle is action movie gold? Or finds a presidential riddle compelling? ("Fun" fact, though: in this 1995 movie, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump get name-dropped.)

The bad guy isn't a total loss, though, thanks to an unashamed and over-the-top performance by Jeremy Irons. It's both unbelievably stupid and exactly what the movie needs, and a totally credible take on what you imagine Hans Gruber's (or Alan Rickman's) brother would be like.

Die Hard With a Vengeance isn't terrible, but as with the second installment, it suffers from comparison to the movie that started it all. I can't imagine watching Vengeance again in a world where I could watch Die Hard instead. I give the movie a C.