Quintessential Quadrilogies | Die Hard

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With Christmas fast-approaching, I feel it’s appropriate to kick off my ongoing quadrilogy series with the four “Die Hard” films, seeing as how movies one and two are set on Christmas Eve. I posted reviews of “Die Hard” and “Die Hard 2: Die Harder” last Christmas, so I’ll eschew a detailed analysis of the first pair of installments. Instead I’ll focus on the latter two, “Die Hard With a Vengeance” and “Live Free or Die Hard.”

“Die Hard With a Vengeance” was released five years after “Die Hard 2.” One emerging pattern I’ve noticed in quadrilogies is that the later chapters aren’t released in as rapid succession as the earlier episodes; there’s a twelve-year gap between “Die Hard With a Vengeance” and “Live Free or Die Hard.” The long stretches of time between installments lessens the fanfare with which each subsequent film is received. Studios are typically loathe to wait more than four years between episodes and nowadays prefer a two-year turnaround.

The third and fourth “Die Hard” sequels are also excellent examples of how studios have a phobia about assigning numerical designations to films when the franchises become long in the tooth. “Die Hard 2″ sounds less ridiculous than “Die Hard 4,” I suppose. At any rate, by the mid-1990s, sequels with numbers in their titles were less and less common. The “Star Trek” films dropped the Roman numerals from their titles once the Next Generation crew became the focal point, and the “Batman” films never bothered numbering their sequels to begin with. These days, if a number is worked into a sequel title, it’s done literally, like in the case of “2 Fast, 2 Furious.” I think “Di3 Hard” looks like dog’s breakfast as does “Die H4rd.”

The unnumbered third and fourth “Die Hard” films jettison many of the key elements of the first two parts. No longer is John McClane (Bruce Willis) confined to a limited arena — a skyscraper or an airport — and is able to move about more freely within his given environment. In movie three, the bulk of the action is set in New York City, and in movie four, the DC-area. McClane’s estranged wife, Holly, is no longer held hostage or in some kind of danger, diminishing McClane’s personal stake in the plot proceedings. However, the fourth movie does put McClane’s estranged daughter Lucy in harm’s way. This is a late development in the plot, though, and comes across as perfunctory. Movies three and four are also set during the summertime rather than on Christmas Eve, like parts one and two, a somewhat inconsequential omission.

“Die Hard With a Vengeance” and “Live Free or Die Hard” introduce a “buddy” element to the franchise with mixed results. McClane has an ally character in all four films, though in the first two, he generally dispatches the terrorists single-handedly. The latter two films team McClane with quirky sidekicks. In “Die Hard With a Vengeance,” McClane’s partnered with Samuel L. Jackson’s the black militant shopkeeper Zeus Carver, and in “Live Free or Die Hard,” he’s paired with Justin Long’s spineless computer hacker Matt Farrell. As the sequels increase in number, so does the sheer impossibility of the feats of derring-do that McClane performs. The sidekicks function as “audience identification” characters, since McClane is nearly invincible and less empathetic. Throughout the proceedings, the sidekicks both absorb quite a bit of punishment, not unlike McClane in the first movie. As such, they draw attention to how McClane has evolved from a vulnerable everyman to an unstoppable killing machine.

Movies three and four in effect undermine the first two films, another symptom of a quadrilogy I’ve found. In “Die Hard With a Vengeance,” McClane is once again separated from Holly and on suspension from his duties as a New York City policeman. It’s never thoroughly explained how or why their marriage is in trouble, but it does diminish McClane’s character arc in the first film. Also, we see in the second movie that he and his wife are still very much in love a full year after the events of the original “Die Hard.” Returning McClane to New York and driving another wedge between him and his wife weakens him as a character. It’s also openly suggested in the third film that McClane has become an alcoholic, but this is never more than superficially addressed in the narrative. At the end of movie three, McClane resolves to call his wife and presumably patch up their relationship. However, it’s established in movie four that he and his wife have since divorced.

So how does “Die Hard” measure up as a quadrilogy? Well, it’s an uneven series at best. The first and second sequels have their apologists. I enjoy them both but still acknowledge that neither measures up to the original. “Live Free or Die Hard” arrived so late, it almost feels like a completely different type of film; its PG-13 rating contributes to this significantly. That said, the fourth movie is easily the weakest. I’m going to make it my mission to find a fourth film in my ongoing quadrilogy series that is actually better than the second or third. But as far as the “Die Hard” series goes, the diminishing returns become more and more apparent with each subsequent installment.

-Brad Lohan

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