I totally agree with your review but I still wouldn't call it underrated. It was #6 on Gene Siskel's Best of 1990. And every major critic I regularly read all liked it -- very enthusiastically, for the most part, when it was released.Is this the most underrated great sequel ever made?
That's just it...no one ever goes back to read what critics thought of when a movie was released, they just sheepishly follow whatever "the pack" thinks online.AndyDursin wrote: Wed Dec 19, 2018 2:11 pm
I totally agree with your review but I still wouldn't call it underrated. It was #6 on Gene Siskel's Best of 1990. And every major critic I regularly read all liked it -- very enthusiastically, for the most part, when it was released.
Internet people seem to write it off these days, but that's just internet people.
It just baffles me why so many people think With A Vengeance is the "better" film, just because John McTiernan came back to direct and because Sam Jackson is in it. 
It's the Last Crusade fallacy, where because the third film is "funnier" and has a famous actor in the sidekick role, that makes it superior to the second, despite that film being far better-made in terms of filmmaking craft and storytelling. I stopped watching WAV altogether years ago, because it's SUCH a crushing letdown compared to the first two. Bad special effects, clumsy camerawork, absurd conincidences and that lousy, cheapjack reshot ending. Even Willis' delivery of McClane's catchphrase seems perfunctory. It's the Alien 3 of the Die Hard franchise, and not even a handful of funny lines and one really well-done suspense sequence (the elevator shootout) can save it. I can enjoy Live Free... as a solid action movie, but it doesn't feel much like a Die Hard film, and, seriously, is Bonnie Bedelia really that busy to reprise her role as Holly, even just for a token cameo? The "estranged, alcolholic McClane" we've seen since WAV is a total, depressing drag. In the UK, the third Die Hard film was distributed by Buena Vista International.AndyDursin wrote: Wed Dec 19, 2018 3:41 pm Exactly, we have had the discussion on it many times before. I saw it at a sneak preview a few days before it opened and was crushed. It didn't even feel like a DIE HARD movie, even with McTiernan back. The obvious "shoot in NYC for a few days, make the rest elsewhere" (apparently Maryland and South Carolina!) locations, the absolutely awful, rushed ending (as I heard it, reshot to cover for a cliffhanger/sequel tease they decided not to make)...it's just really poor. I've never understood why anyone thinks it's a good movie, much less a quality sequel.
From what I've heard about the forthcoming Die Hard 6 (ugh...), half of the movie will be flashbacks to a young McClane when me meets Holly while working a case, and the rest will take place today with him dealing with the fallout from that case, so maybe they can cajole Bedelia back for a one-scene appearance. And maybe get MEW back while they're at it (amazes me they actually cut her cameo out of the "director's cut" of A Good Day...AndyDursin wrote: Wed Dec 19, 2018 2:44 pm I have often wondered if there was some friction or bad blood or....whatever....with Bonnie. Agreed it seemed bizarre she didnt come back. Too much money? Some other reason?
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