Asking dedicated supporters to rank the entries in any iconic franchise from worst to best can often be an arduous task, but 99 percent of action junkies would surely have the first and third installments of Die Hard in the top two positions.
Die Hard 2 was a solid-if-familiar successor to the all-time classic original, while Live Free or Die Hard delivered explosive set pieces on a blockbuster scale without ever channeling the spirit of the original trilogy, and you’d have to travel far and wide to find anyone who thinks A Good Day to Die Hard is even remotely entertaining, never mind anything but the worst by far.
Despite all of that, a rebellion is brewing on Reddit after it was suggested that John McTiernan’s return to the director’s chair for Die Hard with a Vengeance was every bit the equal of its illustrious forebear. Surprisingly, though, there’s a lot of people firmly in agreement that Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson dashing around New York City to save the day in an odd couple buddy caper deserves to be elevated onto the same pedestal as the tank top enthusiast’s maiden jaunt around in, on, and around Nakatomi Plaza.
It’s definitely the second best Die Hard flick at the very least, but capable of being mentioned in the same breath as the original? It sounds borderline sacrilegious, but decidedly less so when you consider they’re both excellent versions of very different concepts, ones that just so happen to occupy the same IP.