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Review
Archives
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Today's
Date is:
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Die
Hard (Five Star Collection)
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Reviewed
by: |
Nancy
Lisak |
| Genre: |
Action |
| Video: |
Anamorphic
Widescreen (Aspect Ratio 2.35:1) |
| Audio: |
English
5.1 DTS, English 5.1 Surround, English Dolby Surround, French
Dolby Surround |
| Language: |
English,
French |
| Subtitle: |
English,
Spanish |
| Length: |
2hrs
& 12 minutes |
| Rating: |
R |
| Release
Date: |
July
10, 2001 |
| Studio: |
20th
Century Fox |
| Commentary:
|
Commentary
by Director John McTiernan and Production Designer Jackson DeGovia
Scene-Specific Commentary by Special Effects Supervisor Richard
Edlund Subtitle Commentary by Various Cast and Crew |
| Documentaries:
|
None |
| Featurettes:
|
Under
Ad Campaigns (~7 minutes) |
| Filmography/Biography:
|
None |
|
Interviews: |
None |
| Trailers/TV
Spots: |
Yes |
| Alternate/Deleted
Scenes: |
Yes |
| Music
Video: |
None |
| Other:
|
Branching
version with two extended scenes DVD-ROM Script-to-Screen Comparison
The Cutting Room Gag Reel Extended Newscasts Interactive Articles
from American Cinematographer and Cinfex Magazine Full-Length
Screenplay Still Gallery DVD-ROM Links and Game Demos |
| Cast
and Crew: |
Bruce Willis
(John McLane), Bonnie Bedelia (Holly McLane), Alan Rickman (Hans
Gruber), Alexander Godunov (Karl), Reginald Johnson (Sgt. Al
Powell) |
| Screenplay
by: |
Jeb Stuart
and Steven E. de Souza |
| Produced
by: |
Lawrence Gordon and Joel
Silver |
| Directed
By: |
John McTiernan |
| Music: |
Michael Kamen |
| The
Review: |
Bruce Willis
stars in this action-packed film as John McLane, a New York
City cop who comes to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with his
estranged wife Holly, played by Bonnie Bedelia. While he waits
in a private bathroom for her office Christmas party to come
to an end, the building is infiltrated and taken over by a group
of terrorists. McLane quickly escapes to another floor to figure
out what to do, and he begins a one-man battle against the terrorists
who for quite some time are unable to identify him. With the
phones disconnected by the terrorists, McLane wracks his brain
for ways to contact the authorities. A pulled fire alarm is
quickly called off by one terrorist, posing as a building employee.
As McLane begins picking off the terrorists one by one, gradually
collecting a small arsenal of weapons, he eventually gets a
radio, which he uses to place an emergency call to the police.
He's treated as a crank call, but Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald Johnson)
is sent to investigate, and McLane gets his attention by dumping
one of the terrorist bodies out the window onto the hood of
the police car. This sets off a series of events bringing in
the LA police and the FBI, but neither agency really believes
that McLane is fighting against the terrorists since he hasn't
identified himself over the radio. Powell's hunch tells him
that McLane is a cop, but no one else believes him, so he becomes
McLane's only real backup. This film moves quickly from one
action-packed scene to another, and it's remarkably easy to
suspend disbelief that a single police officer, initially armed
with only a service revolver, could take on a group of 12 terrorists.
McLane uses his own cunning and the missteps by the FBI and
LAPD to his advantage, as well as keeping his identity a secret
for as long as possible. A great action film with enough comic
lines to break the tension-well worth the "price of admission."
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| Image
and Sound |
The film
was transferred in original letterbox form, which is always
the ideal. The picture is crisp, and I didn't notice any glitches
or catches is the action. The audio gives you a variety of options
depending on the system you're using to play the DVD, so even
someone with just a virtual surround sound option will find
themselves adjusting the volume if they don't want to bother
the neighbors. |
| The
Extras |
The number
of extras on this two-disc set really blew me away. Most are
well worth checking out, but some work to a bit of a disadvantage.
The one big drawback is that there are so many extras that it's
sometimes hard to find what you're looking for. FEATURETTE:
This short featurette didn't feel valuable at all to me. The
narration was very sales-y, so it was obviously put together
as part of the ad campaign (which is where it's included on
the DVD). They did have brief spots with the lead actors, including
one in which you find out that Willis did his own stunts in
the film. BRANCHING VERSION WITH TWO EXTENDED SCENES: The viewer
is given the option of watching the two scenes individually
or during the actual viewing of the full-length film. To watch
them in the film, you have to wait for an on-screen cue and
access it that way, or you can watch them on disc 2. Personally,
I thought they were good cuts to the final version, and though
I was drawn to watch them, I could have lived without seeing
them. DVD-ROM SCRIPT-TO-SCREEN COMPARISON/FULL-LENGTH SCREENPLAY:
This is a feature I've actually never run into before. The studio
has chosen to include the entire script of the film on the DVD.
However, it's on disc 2, so you can't really compare it to the
film while you're watching, which is what I though when I read
"script-to-screen comparison." They've done so much already
with subtitles that, I would think, they could have added this
as an additional subtitle option. According to the packaging,
the script-to-screen is on disc 1, but I was never able to find
it. THE CUTTING ROOM: This is by far the coolest feature on
the DVD. It's an interactive feature designed to teach about
film and audio editing. It includes a piece about letterbox
version versus full-screen versions as well as a glossary. The
fun part is the inclusion of several scenes shot in different
ways that you can remix and re-edit for video and audio and
then play back the version you created. You can make it look
and sound as good or as bad as you want, and it's interesting
to see the number of different ways one scene is shot. This
is also where you can view some scenes at a variety of angles.
GAG REEL: The gag reel is actually outtakes combined into one
fluid piece buried in "From the Vault" with the newscasts and
the magazine articles. It was more cutting room, less gag, and
I prefer DVDs that show each cut individually and give you a
director's view of why they were cut. When watching cut scenes
from other DVDs (for instance, "The Sixth Sense"), I typically
decide as I'm watching whether I thought it was a good cut or
not. That's hard to do when everything is flowed together as
it is here. That said, it's still interesting to see some of
the things the production staff chose not to include. One of
the most interesting things included here is a deleted scene
that explains why McLane's t-shirt goes from black to white
through the course of the film (something that, honestly, I
didn't even notice until it was brought to my attention). EXTENDED
NEWSCASTS: This feature includes the complete newscasts shot
for the movie and includes bloopers throughout. They're entertaining
to view and give you actually more of an idea of what a moron
one of the newscasters is portrayed to be. A line included in
the movie to depict this was "Helsinki, as in Sweden," and he's
corrected that it's Finland. One of the lines not included in
the film but included here, "I think it's safe to say that Gruber's
terrorist actions in Los Angeles tonight are, well, terroristic."
INTERACTIVE ARTICLES FROM AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER AND CINFEX
MAGAZINE: I think it's valuable to include articles on DVDs
for those who want to read them, but I do think it's difficult
to read articles on a television. The one bonus here that I've
not seen in other DVD features is the inclusion of photographs
with captions from the original articles. STILL GALLERY: I always
find it interesting to see still galleries from films included
on DVDs. This one claims to have links to short presentations,
but the presentations I tried to link to were other still shots
with captions that were difficult to read. DVD-ROM LINKS AND
GAME DEMOS: Sad to say, the Internet link included here is no
longer a valid page. Considering the DVD was just released at
the beginning of July, I would have thought the studio would
keep the link active for quite some time. The game demos are
for action-oriented PC games if you're interested in PC gaming.
|
| Commentary |
The commentary
options included on this DVD far surpass any I've ever seen
before. The big bonus to commentary is the additional information
you get. The one drawback to commentary is that if you don't
know the movie very well, you have to watch the movie first,
then watch with the commentary running OR you have to watch
the film with subtitles on so you can follow the action. When
I saw in the language options that there was a subtitle commentary,
I was really excited. However, the subtitle commentary is different
from the audio commentary and it runs much to fast to read while
you're trying to follow the film. Commentary addicts could actually,
if they wanted to, watch the film with the director's audio
commentary running as well as the subtitle commentary. Mind
you, you need to know the film really well at that point and
you have to be great at listening and reading at the same time,
but if you want that additional information, you're going to
get a lot of it here. |
| Final
Words: |
I think
this is definitely a great buy. If you're going rental, make
sure you have the rental for more than one day. It's going to
take you quite some time to get through everything there is
to see. I think the studio erred in not releasing the trilogy
of DVDs as a set like it did with the videos, and this is one
DVD junkie who will be really, really annoyed if she walks into
Best Buy six months from now and sees all three films packaged
together. |
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