Review of Die Hard: The Ultimate Collection

Introduction

It was only a matter of time before Fox released the Die Hard Collection in one box, in Alien Legacy style, with extras thrown in for good measure. So here we have it, Bruce Willis in a trilogy of action films delivering high octane thrills to a global audience. It was a recipe for success.

I was an instant fan when Die Hard first came out in 1988 and it`s usually a movie that you can`t go too wrong with. Despite it being somewhat predictable it still does well as entertainment. Bruce Willis has made the character of John McClane his own and has given us plenty of memorable moments, inlcuding a catchphrase to see off the bad guys. :-)

Fox have released all three movies in one shiny collectable box with tons of additional features. All discs are THX mastered with fantastic sounding DD5.1 and DTS soundtracks coupled with good video quality too. I hadn`t seen any of the Die Hard films on DVD before and still have THX laserdiscs gathering dust somewhere, so it was good to see the films again with the benefits of DVD. What these films have is great stuntwork, effects and destruction galore! Just to let you know, when reading this review I interchange between DH, DH2 and DH3 as a shorthand way of writing Die Hard, Die Harder, and Die Hard with a Vengeance. Read on!

Die Hard: Bruce Willis plays New York cop John McClane visiting his estranged wife for Christmas in L.A. at the Nakatomi Plaza building. While waiting for the party to breakup, terrorists - led by Hans Gruber - take control of the building and effectively seal it off in the first part of their plan to walk away with $600 million. The only hitch in this plan is John McClane. Let the action commence! This film put Bruce Willis well and truly on the map and DH went on to gross more than $200m worldwide. This brought together the Producers and Director of Predator to create what was to become a true benchmark for action movies. Although this was made 14 years ago, it`s still well made and is better than a lot of todays high impact thrillers.

The truly outstanding thing about the movie is the way the camera captures the action. De Bont, DeGovia and McTiernan frame, compose and fill each shot with some meaning of the story. From the way McClane is positioned as the underdog, to the film noir camera slants with the villains you can see a lot of visual storytelling going on. The editing too is top notch and balances the pacing and tension. Bruce Willis with his well known vest is good as the reluctant hero and we instantly root for him which is great because he lends the character that perfect blend of humour and irreverent wit. Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber looks and plays the part of the protagonist really well with the rest of his stylish cohorts.

Lastly on this DVD we get the option to see an extra scene inserted by way of branching which includes the Nakatomi Plaza Power Shutdown scene. This makes more sense to the events which follow and it`s a shame the scene was never finished, though it`s here in the first place is a good thing.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder - The basic premise of the film is that drug smuggler extraordinaire, General Esperanzo, has been arrested and is being transported to the US. A group of mercenaries led by Colonel Stuart (William Sadler) want to free him, so they take over the communications of the airport and hold the airport hostage. They want to take Esperanzo who is due to land at the airport, and what ensues is Bruce Willis being the wrong guy in the wrong place, again. There`s the token airplane crash which the villains use to demonstrate their seriousness too. Planes are not allowed to land at the airport and are running out of fuel just circling around, one of these planes has McClane`s wife on board. So McClane takes it upon himself to stop them and to make sure his wife can land safely.

What follows is two hours of McClane acting fearless, taking on and disposing the bad guys, making wise cracks, performing some interesting stunts and that`s about it. I like action movies and I don`t mind that these tend to be a little OTT from time-to-time, you can allow for some of these things to be a little silly, but DH2 bored me. I found the dialogue to be particular poor and worse than just cheesy coupled with poor characterisations. I can`t feel anything for any of the characters here, there`s no emotion whatsoever, and this ends up being a macho farce.

William Sadler as the main villain of the piece tries to do a good job, but the script is poor, the direction is average and the villains are plainly uninteresting. The other Die Hard movies had interesting bad guys. Seeing Dennis Franz as the stereotypical Chief of Airport Police is typical as he gets things wrong, how tiring. Even some of the fight scenes are poorly shot with stunt doubles that are all too easy to notice and this put me off. Are there any redeeming points to DH2? There are some good stunts and effects, and nicely composed set pieces with interesting director commentary, but alas it`s not enough to prop up the film.

Any sequel to a huge film is under pressure to perform well in terms of revenue and for the most part try to be a better film. There are a few sequels out there which could be argued as being better than the original, however DH2 is not one of them. The story has problems with structure and who cares about the characters? Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons were perfectly cast in their roles for DH and DH3, here Sadler just isn`t bad enough and doesn`t possess the charisma to be a bad enough bad guy. DH2 is a very average movie and reminds me of Renny Harlin`s other movies, `Cliffhanger` and `The Long Kiss Goodnight` in the average stakes.

Die Hard with a Vengeance - This third installment reunites original Director John McTiernan with Bruce Willis and is back on top form. This has all the ingredients that made the first Die Hard a great action movie, and believe it or not this is the highest grossing picture of the three earning more than $300m worldwide.

This is based on the original screenplay, "Simon Says", by Jonathan Hensleigh (Armageddon) and is centered around John McClane disposing of the bad guys in New York City. A psychopathic criminal who calls himself "Simon" is planting bombs in New York and blowing them up unless McClane plays his games. This is where the rollercoaster action begins and McClane is joined by street-smart Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson). They run about town trying to solve riddles to stop these bombs from being detonated while Simon has plans to undertake a major heist. We`re no longer trapped in the confines of the Nakatomi Plaza or Dulles Airport, here we can run amok in Manhatten with gunfights, car chases and loads of cool stunts.

There`s constant banter between the villain and hero and this leads to a relationship building between them. In turn I think this gives the film a better sense of tension and we`re more involved in what`s happening as the story unfolds. DH3 is quite long at around 130 minutes but the pacing is spot on and there are good `beats` in the story which means you`re never bored. It does have its silly moments, but this plays so well that it doesn`t matter. Willis and Jackson play off each other really well too and it`s good fun seeing them together. Jeremy Irons as Simon Gruber makes for great casting (two British actors as lead villains in Die Hard can`t be a bad thing!). The rest of the cast here is top notch also.

Nice to see Bruce getting old with his receding hairline in all the movies, very realistic. There`s an alternative ending to this movie on disc two, and at first I thought it might have been good to have it available as a branched scene added to the main film. Though thinking about it, as a director I`m sure McTiernan has his reasons for not allowing this. It`s hard to believe that this film was made six years ago as it still stands out now as something which looks quite fresh and current. It`s got great stunts and great effects, in particular the opening shot in Harlem is well done. I won`t tell you here, you`ll just have to see it and listen to the director commentary for yourself! :-)

Video

Die Hard - The 2.35:1 anamorphic print looks very good with only minor flecks from time-to-time, nothing which will spoil your viewing of the movie. It`s rich in colour and detail and shows off Jan De Bont`s lovely stylised look to the film. It`s reminiscent of some of the same style he later used in Basic Instinct so well. The film takes place at night and mainly uses the interior of the building so it has a certain look to it with good use of colour. There is some evidence of edge enhancement in a few scenes but this wasn`t too bad. The dark scenes are rendered well and I didn`t notice any artefacts or pixels creeping in, it`s well rendered throughout.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder - The anamorphic print is pretty good with little or no edge enhancement for the most part. However there are a few scenes which seem a little soft, fortunately these aren`t too apparent. There are a lot of exterior night scenes in the film so it`s good to see the black contrasting well with the snow, coupled with a good level of detail throughout. Artefacts and pixelling weren`t apparent on this disc.

Die Hard with a Vengeance - The video quality here is quite good with a wide range of colours being used in a variety day and night shots, all this gives a very natural look. The only problem that I saw was edge enhancement and this is fairly noticeable throughout, but I think once you start watching the film you`ll soon ignore any minor problems with the film. On the whole the transfer is clean and free of most spots and flecks with good contrast. Blacks look good too.

Audio

The superb score by Michael Kamen is wonderfully dramatic and tense in all the movies and blends well with Beethoven`s Ninth Symphony in Die Hard. I found the Dolby Digital mix to sound pretty much as good as the DTS soundtrack, there are some great sound effects which pan around and it sounds pretty tight. I couldn`t notice any distinct sound from the surround speakers however. DH2 is similar with more shootouts and some better sound separation. DH3 has great sound, the high quality DD and DTS soundtrack is nothing short of stunning, powerful and well worth pumping up the sound for. The dialogue seemed to be pretty clear from the front and it was good to hear McClane`s usual witty remarks. All in all all Die Hard movies have a well balanced audio track.

Features

This collection certainly seems feature rich with very good 3D menus. It`s a shame though that there`s a lack of consistency between them in terms of what they present. For example there are liner notes in DH, but this is lacking in the other two movies and there are no scenes to play with in DH2 or DH3 as in DH. Perhaps this is because Die Hard is given Fox`s 5 Star treatment? One of the surprising things I noticed (but not really important, I`m being picky!), is the poor screen printing on the discs themselves, Die Harder has good image quality whereas the others are fairly poor. I thought presentation would be everything? Without further ado, let`s get through these features!

Die Hard - Comes with liner notes spread over six pages covering the production of the movie.
Disc one has branching which enables you to insert a previously cut and unfinished scene for playback. There are also two commentary tracks; one featuring McTiernan and DeGovia (Production Designer) and the other is by Richard Edlund (Visual Effects Producer) and is scene specific. I found the first commentary track quite interesting and this was recorded for this DVD version, though they don`t sound like they`re in the same room recording the commentary together since they never talk over each other and you don`t get the interactive banter between them.

Next up is the Text Commentary. This takes the form of subtitled text which occupies the bottom part of the screen and features new interviews with DeSouza (Screenwriter) DeGovia (Production Designer), Gordon (Producer), Alan Rickman, Michael Kamen (Composer) and others involved in the Die Hard production. I found this text to be quite compelling and sat there with my finger on the pause button just reading it all, absorbing information. It`s not on all the time, though when it is on it`s scene specific and you learn about how and why certain shots are created the way they are. Total overload I know, but I`ve never seen anything like this before on a DVD and I`m pleased there`s so much to this film. No wonder there are two discs!

I`ll briefly mention the DVD-ROM feature worth speaking of, and this is Script-to-Screen. You may guess what this consists of and what`s presented here works pretty well, you can select scenes and read the script while the final cut plays in a window. Lastly there are links to Fox websites.

Disc two: We start with From the Vault contains Outtakes, Newscasts and Magazine Articles. The interesting parts here are the Outtakes and the Magazine articles which are reproduced from American Cinematographer and Cinefex. I found these to be very detailed and while interesting to read, I was finding it difficult to read all on screen with the small text. It would have been better to reproduce these for the liner notes instead.

The Cutting Room is simply a superb feature! It comprises of a Scene Editing Workshop where you get the chance to be the Film Editor and cut shots together to complete a scene. You view a small collection of shots then click `use` and progress to the next part until you`ve completed the scene. Hit `View Final Cut` and you can see your handywork being played back. Because of limitations of the DVD format, there isn`t a lot more that can be done (lack of memory being a limitation) but what is here is simply good fun. There are three scenes to play with and I had a lot of fun!

There`s Multi-camera shooting which is a few scenes shot with more than one camera, here you get to use the angle button and can switch between them. The Mixing Suite is where you can experiment with the audio mixing of dialogue, music and effects from a scene. This gives a very simplified demo of what`s involved in mixing audio, it`s fun but it`s shortlived. Why Letterbox? is a quick demo of letterboxing over pan & scan with two telecine guys. And lastly there`s a filmmaking Glossary which is good to peruse (and quite funny), it all helps to brush up on your technique. ;-)

The Interactive Slide Show features a lot of publicity and production stills, plus short presentations on certain stills which elaborate more on the chosen item. There are loads of pictures here shown as an automatic slideshow and these are really well produced with music. Other companies can take note! The entire script is reproduced here too in page form where you skip forwards and backwards, though you have to start from the beginning since there isn`t any way to select individual chapters to read.

Rounding off the disc we get the Ad Campaign with 3 Trailers, 7 TV Spots and a Featurette. The Trailers with all these TV spots is a relentless bash on the senses and you`ve got to hand it to those American`s, they know how to market the hell out of a movie. The Featurette features voiceover man and is a quick 7 minute look at the movie with cast and crew. Incidentally, there`s an Easter Egg here too.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder - Disc one has Director`s Commentary which I have to say I found interesting. Despite what I thought about the movie, listening to Renny Harlin is somewhat more fascinating to me than the film itself as it`s more technical and covers the production, cast and crew.

Disc two: We start with the Television Special and Featurette. Die Harder: The Making of Die Hard 2 is a television special and as such lasts for 23 minutes and barely scrapes the surface of the movie. The four minute featurette is just a rehash of the first featurette, nothing new at all.

The Trailers and TV Spots comprises of 4 trailers and a TV spot. I have to admit that these trailers are quite amusing to watch, they`re so bad they`re good, if you know what I mean. These reflect the times so well that it`s reminicent of those straight-to-video action movies of the 80`s with voiceover man. All anamorphically produced though there`s hardly anything inspiring here except for the line, "Old habits die hard", ha! Those pesky marketing types...

Deleted Scenes contains four previously unseen footage. Only one of them where we see McClane doing his highwire act in the tunnels with Marvin is interesting. The rest of them aren`t of any real interest and glady are not in the film, these scenes lack pace and border on dull. I`m sure there are far more interesting scenes to see. Onto the Interview and Profile where we have an interview with Finnish Director, Renny Harlin. It was interesting to hear him speak of the movie, I`ve not seen him before, but again it`s too short.

Behind the Scenes and Storyboards covers the snowmobile sequence and the opening conveyor belt shot followed by storyboards for the new terminal shot. These are interesting but short and I wanted to see more of this kind of thing covering more effects in the movie.

Visual Effects. Two visual effects breakdowns, one for the ejector seat scene and the other for the airport runway scene at the close of the movie. Everyone who`s seen the movie is familiar with the ejector seat by now and it shows how the scene was put together though it`s nothing you won`t have seen before as it`s typical of most effects shots. The airport runway scene however is more interesting. This compares the stages of the runway matte painting with the final composite shot and runs without any commentary. You see images on screen brought together in parts where you then see the final shot and it all falls into place. I thought this was good as I would never have guessed what this final shot entailed.

Die Hard with a Vengeance:
Disc one has only the THX Optimode and a commentary track featuring John McTiernan, Jonathan Hensleigh (Screenwriter) and former Fox President of Marketing, Tom Sherak. I found the commentary track to be really interesting and enjoyed it though these guys weren`t in the same room recording it so there`s no back and forth banter. Hensleigh mentions the changes, the thoughts and sensitivities of the time when writing the script and McTiernan talks about the scenes and how certain shots were created.

Disc two has a multitude of extras. First up we have the Featurette and Television Specials. This is the typical studio marketing machine in action. There`s a total of 47 minutes worth here broken down into Behind the Scenes, A Night to Die For and the Die Hard 3 Featurette running at just 4 minutes. Behind the Scenes (22 mins) was created for HBO and is hosted by Reginald Vel Johnson and this to be the usual PR made programme, it does contain a few things of interest but not a great deal. A Night to Die For (21.5 mins) is hosted by Samuel L. Jackson and was aired on CBS with the broadcast of Die Hard 2. This features famous people talking about John McClane and the Die Hard movies, including a piece by New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani where he talks about property destruction and peoples lives being at stake. Lastly we have the 4 minute featurette itself which was produced for Fox`s electronic press kit. The less said about this, the better.

I found all three parts to be fairly mundane since they all re-use the same clips and there`s very little to gleen from watching it all. You will however hear music from another big Fox/McTiernan movie playing in the background, I thought this was a nice touch though.

Alternate Ending - I thought it was interesting to watch, but ultimately I think the film is cut just fine without it. This scene loses the pacing that was so frenetic in the movie. Here you can select commentary from the writer Jonathan Hensleigh to hear his thoughts on the scene.

Behind the Scenes and Storyboards - This is broken down into three parts: Terror in the Subway, Prepping the Park and Blowing up Bonwit. Each part here runs for between 8 and 10 minutes long and covers just these specific scenes. I found these to be interesting as we get on set to see the preparations for the stunts and watch the process. There`s a storyboard here too covering McClane`s scene in the aquaduct and makes comparisons between this and the final cut.

In Interview and Profile we get an interview with Bruce Willis and also a profile on the villain of the piece. Six minutes for a Bruce Willis interview seems a little short though. Check out Bruce`s action pocket, this is very interesting. ;-)

Near the end we have Visual Effects. This breaks down 7 visual effects scenes which you select, one after the other. It`s a shame these can`t be played sequentially since these aren`t very long. I have to admit though that most of these are pretty good, I never would have thought some of the scenes here used a particular effects shot so it was an eye opener. Rounding the disc off we have Trailers and TV Spots. It`s the usual stuff and here we get two trailers and ten TV spots all anamorphiclly produced.

It`s not a bad collection of features, but I would have preferred one proper `Making Of` documentary encompassing all the footage on this disc instead of having to wade through menus to see this stuff.

Conclusion

The Die Hard Collection comes uncut with good video and sound and Fox haven`t done a bad job putting it together. This is housed in a reflective box with each film consisting of two discs, sporting a DTS and DD soundtrack, commentary tracks and supplemental features on the second disc. Die Hard has the best features of the three while the other two aren`t great but do have some interesting things (like Director Commentary).

However, all said and done, this is pure entertainment and Bruce Willis delivers lines in his own irreverent style. Hollywood just doesn`t make action thrillers like this anymore and with all the carnage it`s easy to see why. In my opinion the only weak film here is Die Harder for the reasons that I`ve already outlined and so on this basis I wouldn`t recommend this film on its own. However as part of a collection with Die Hard and Die Hard with a Vengeance, it`s worth getting hold of for these two movies alone.