At startup, the UHD goes straight to the main menu screen with full-motion clips, the usual options along the bottom and music playing in the background. The dual-layered UHD66 disc sits comfortably opposite a Region Free, BD50 disc inside a black, eco-cutout keepcase. Add to that John McTiernan's economical direction and a breathless set of stunt sequences that still hold up, and Die Hard stands head-to-head with the absolute best action flicks of the '80s.įor a more in-depth take on the movie, you can read our review of the standard Blu-ray HERE.Ģ0th Century Fox Home Entertainment brings Die Hard to Ultra HD Blu-ray as a two-disc 30th Anniversary combo pack with a flyer for a Digital HD Copy, which can be redeemed via but only available in HD / SDR and HDX on VUDU. And the seemingly incongruous pairing of Willis and Bedelia manages to generate real sparks, making us actually believe that this guy would risk everything to save his wife, instead of just another tired plot device. Rickman is also the best villain of the entire Die Hard series, coming off as the kind of uber-nasty psycho who would stab you with a knife, lick off the blood, and then stab you again. McClane's got more quips than James Bond and Freddy Krueger put together, but somehow Willis makes the character endearing rather than smarmy.
Just wrapping up his run in TV's Moonlighting, Willis was at his hungriest in Die Hard, and he almost single-handedly carries the entire movie on his well-oiled shoulders. By the time he gets around to kicking Gruber's ass at film's end, he's already rewritten every cliche in the action movie playbook. His cocky facade masks a palpable vulnerability, but that only makes him even more courageous. Schwarzenegger), McClane is not a superman, but rather just an ordinary guy stuck in an extraordinary situation. And unlike the muscled action heroes of yore (this means you, Gov. Simple premise, great action, airtight execution. Bruce Willis' John McClane is a NYC cop who has (reluctantly) flown to Los Angeles to reconcile with his upwardly-mobile wife (Bonnie Bedelia), but he ends up trapped in a skyscraper with a bunch of mercenary thugs led by the sniveling Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman).
McClane redefined the boundaries of the action archetype, bringing warmth, humor, unpredictability, and an almost fanciful sense of masculine derring-do to the genre.ġ988's Die Hard, of course, was the film that started it all, and it broke all preconceptions for what an action hero could be. Aside from James Bond and Indiana Jones, there may be no other action movie hero who has lasted as long or remained as beloved by audiences. Starting with Die Hard, and continuing through four sequels, the character has proven to be one of the most durable in a very fickle genre. In this fifth installment of the Die Hard franchise, John McClane (Bruce Willis) travels to Russia to help out his seemingly wayward son, Jack (Jai Courtney), only to discover that Jack is a CIA operative working to prevent a nuclear-weapons heist, causing the father and son to team up against underworld forces.įeatures on the Extended Edition include "Anatomy of a Car Chase" - an hour long behind-the-scenes documentary that looks at the making of the movie - a director's commentary and deleted scenes.Over the last thirty years, John McClane has become such an iconic part of the action-film landscape that it's hard to remember a time when he wasn't etched in our pop culture consciousness.
What's more, Fox is putting out a 2-disc Blu-ray Extended Edition with over two hours of bonus material, just in time for Father's Day. 20th Century Fox announced today the home video release of A Good Day to Die Hard, which debuts on May 14 on Digital HD and June 4 on Blu-ray and DVD.