close menu

Honest Trailers Doesn’t Make Fun of DIE HARD at All

Screen Junkies’ Honest Trailers series is some of the funniest, pithiest, and most well-reasoned film criticism on the internet and it’s housed inside a skewering of the old trend of overblown, exaggerating, and often hilarious movie trailers. Armed with their Epic Voice Guy and the ability to poke fun while still appreciating what’s good, these trailers have become some of the most-watched on the web. They’ll make fun of anything! Except 1988’s Die Hard. And do you know why? Because Die Hard is frigging awesome.

Lots of people, myself included, have started watching this action spectacular every Christmas as perhaps alternative programming to schmaltz-fests like It’s a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street (both of which are great, by the bye). It’s well-written, it’s well-directed, it’s well-acted, and the stunt sequences are insane. It’s maybe the perfect modern action flick and, as the Honest Trailer attests, it spawned knock off after knock off and gave us the “Die Hard in a ____” cliche. But there’s really no beating the O.G., Die Hard in a Building.

Something the above video doesn’t mention, which is something that I’ve been thinking about for awhile, is that Lethal Weapon, which came out a year earlier in 1987, also takes place at Christmastime, but that one doesn’t get watched every year. They both were released in the summer, they’re both about cops fighting terrorists, they both feature the unlikely friendship between a young white cop and an older black cop. The main reason I can think of here is that Lethal Weapon ain’t Die Hard.

Way to hit the ground running, Rickman! What’s your favorite Die Hard moment? (And let’s just forget the sequels, yeah? Most of them don’t even take place at Christmas!) Let us know in the comments below.

Image: Fox

Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a Film and TV critic for Nerdist.com. Follow his ridiculousness on Twitter.

NERDIST NEWS TALKS BACK Goes Murder Mystery

NERDIST NEWS TALKS BACK Goes Murder Mystery

article
How FARGO Turns Ewan McGregor into Two Characters

How FARGO Turns Ewan McGregor into Two Characters

article
We Learned a Lot About FALLOUT 4 During Bethesda's E3 Press Conference

We Learned a Lot About FALLOUT 4 During Bethesda's E3 Press Conference

article