eric`s Review: Die Hard

The Greatest Christmas Movie of All Time starts of with our protagonist, John McClane, flying into Los Angeles from New York to see his family. This guy is talking to him about \"making fists with his toes\". Yeah, that would be my face too, and apparently it is funny. Back in those days, you could carry firearms onto a plane. Even if you are a cop, this is still pretty weird.

So John is in the airport and lights up a cigarette, because you were allowed to do that back then. Then we meet Argyle, who will be his limo driver for the rest of this adventure. John and Argyle cruise around jamming to Run D.M.C. on their way to Nakatomi Tower, where John is meeting his wife at a Christmas party.

Ok, now he`s there and goes inside to the front desk while Argyle parks the limo in the parking garage. This is just in case things don`t go so well with John`s wife Holly, and he needs a getaway driver. Front desk guy says \"just type her name in the computer, and it will tell you where her office is\". Turns out that Holly is listed under her maiden name, because that`s what kind of wife she is. Yeah, that wouldn`t make me too happy either.

Now we`re at the Christmas party and John gets to talk to Holly`s boss, Joseph Takagi. Mr. Bossman takes John to Holly`s office where we meet douchebag Ellis, who is doing coke on her desk. In front of a cop. That`s smart.

Ah, now we get to see the lovely Ms. Gennaro, I mean, Mrs. McClane. It doesn`t take long for them to get in a heated discussion about how she left him and took their kids to Los Angeles because she has needs and husbands don`t matter. Nice lady.

Here comes a truck full of bad guys that is going to the parking garage, but not near Argyle. We have computer nerd bad guy from Walker, Texas Ranger. Then we have lead bad guy, who kind of looks like a Viking. They came in the front door. Then there`s Jeffrey Dahmer bad guy, Texas bad guy, and... holy crap - it`s Alan Rickman in his first big movie!

So here`s the \"fists with your toes thing\", John is off getting cleaned up so he can join the others at the party. But the party`s over cuz the bad guys are here to ruin everybody`s fun. John hears gunshots and takes a peak out the door. Oh no! The bad guys are rounding up all of their hostages. There`s Holly, probably looking for her boyfriend. John gets the heck out of there, otherwise this movie would be pretty short.

John tries to call for help, but the phones are dead an no one had cell phones in 1987. Alan Rickman, whose name is Hans Gruber for today, politely asks Takagi for the codes to access the vault because he wants the 600 million dollars they have in there. \"Wait, you`re a thief, not a terrorist!\" \"Yep, that`s right\". Somehow John is hiding in the next room so he can hear all this. Mr. Takagi won`t cooperate so Hans shoots him in the face. \"Oh, you win, computer nerd bad guy.\"

John has to get the heck out of Dodge, but the bad guys hear him and make chase. \"Where`d he go?\" Now we`re back upstairs and John is yelling at fireman, in their trucks, from 30 floors up, behind tempered glass. Oh no! Here comes Jeffrey Dahmer bad guy and he`s got Storm Trooper aim. John gets the drop on him and they wrestle around for a bit. But they fall down the stairs and that`s the end of Jeffrey Dahmer bad guy. Christmas!

\"What is that?\" wonders Fabio bad guy. It`s a festive Christmas message from Bruce Willis. Holly and her boyfriend, douchebag Ellis, know that John is still alive! \"Now I have a machine gun, ho-ho-ho\". This pisses off lead bad guy because it turns out that Mr. Sweatpants was his brother. He wants to get revenge on John, but Alan Rickman wants to stick with the plan.

Up on the roof, John uses the radio he took from Mr. Sweatpants to call for help on the police band. The helpful ladies at the call center think he is just messing around and threaten to report him to the F.C.C.? John`s like \"great, yeah, come arrest me - just send cops now!\" The bad guys start shooting and apparently this is very loud over the radio. This convinces the ladies to call for Steve Urkel`s neighbor to check it out.

Carl Winslow shows up at Nakatomi Tower and asks the Texas bad guy if there`s a problem. He says \"nope\", and that`s good enough for Gus from Crocodile Dundee, whos name is Sargent Al Powell today. This is bad news for John McClane, but then suddenly a corpse falls out of the sky onto Al`s hood. The jail guard from Ghostbusters freaks the hell out - \"Oh look, there`s Argyle, remember him?\" - and crashes his police car. This is finally enough to get the rest of the police to show up.

From this point on, John and Al become radio buddies. Hey that guy was in Die Hard 3 as a totally different character. The cops decide to attack the tower with an armored personnel carrier, but the bad guys are ready for that and promptly blow it up. Hans says \"hit it again\" and John is like \"no, don`t be a jerk face\" and decides he wants to blow stuff up too. So the bad guys fire another rocket at the APC and John straps some C4 to an office chair.

John uses a bunch of detonators, and then tosses the chair down the elevator shaft. This makes another way bigger, way cooler explosion, but that`s not how C4 works. The aftermath is pretty devastating, and everybody is messed up.

Al`s boss gets on the radio and tells John to stop blowing things up. John says some derogatory things back (that I can`t say), which Argyle thinks is hilarious, and John tells him to get Al back on the radio.

Oh crap, the bad guys found John again and no one is aiming at their target. A whole bunch of glass gets shattered all over the floor, and Hans realizes that John isn`t wearing shoes. There`s lots more shooting and John has to run across the broken glass to get away. That can`t be fun. Now John`s feet are all sliced up, so he calls his buddy, and Al laughs at his misfortune.

By this time, the bad guys have broken into the vault and it is Christmastime for all. Well, for Severus Snape and Jimmy Trivette anyway. Now John`s all beat-up and it`s time to fight lead bad guy, which isn`t going so well. The FBI shows up in helicopter gun ships because that will help, and Kolya from Stargate: Atlantis is very trigger-happy.

Back to the fight with the guy who looks like Buliwyf. They end up on stairs again, but eventually John gets the upper hand. That`s the end of lead bad guy. All the hostages are now on the roof, but John smells a trap, so he`s like \"get the hell of the roof\". The FBI guys open up on him, putting dozens of innocent civilians in danger. The hostages run back downstairs, but John can`t for some reason, and decides repelling from a fire hose is a better option.

The bad guys had rigged the roof with C4, so that blows up and Bruce Willis` stunt guy slams into the side of the building. Don`t worry, John is ok. Computer nerd bad guy tries to escape in an ambulance, but Argyle is on the job and punches him in the face.

Alan Rickman and the bad guys that are still alive are rounding up their 600 million in bearer bonds, but John McClane shows up to ruin their day. Hans thinks he is going to win because he as Holly at gunpoint, but then he falls out of the window and that`s the end of Hans Gruber.

Now John gets to be with his wife and meet Al Powell in person. Everyone is happy. But wait, lead bad guy is back from the dead. Not to worry, Steve Urkel`s neighbor pulls out his .38 special and takes him down. Yay! Here comes Argyle from the parking garage - it`s ok Al, don`t shoot him too - so he can drive the McClane`s off to a romantic Christmas getaway.