#1 / Die Hard / The original: Awesome. Just as fun now as it was then. An intelligent crook, surrounded by dufus henchman. An enterprising hero. Great one liners. Great byplay with the LA cop. Lots of fun.
#2 Die Harder: Eh. Pretty much sucks. The double double-cross at the end was lame. The many many references to “why does this keep happening to me/us?” wink wink were lame. The newscaster on the plane? Moron. But it does have one redeeming moment: when Bruce Willis kills the dude by stabbing him in the eye with a huge icicle!
#3 Die Hard: With a Vengeance: Enjoyable, although not great (it’s no #1). Liked that they introduced a new character not connected to either the cops or the crime. Some discontinuity with him being back in NY considering in #2 he has moved to LA and become a cop there / #3 acts like #2 never happened (I guess we can’t blame it for that…). Liked that they figure out it’s subterfuge but a little “same old thing again” on the crime / McClane should have figured it out faster!
#4 Live Free or Die Hard: Years later, an update to the franchise! Entertaining! I liked that they updated it to a very modern-day crime, rather than just a rehash of the same type of terrorism (as really both #s 2 and 3 were — unlike other movies I could name from 2007 that took an “old story” and just did the same old thing with it). Liked the byplay with the kid from the apple commercials. Sort of predictable substituting the presence of the daughter instead of the mother, but fine. But things that made it less enjoyable were: a) too many explosions for no reason (rewatch #1, where the explosions are more integral to the plot!); b) if the Gabriel dude is such an amazing hacker, why would he have all these underlings doing his hacking for him now? seems like he would want to be doing it himself, and the actor seemed too young for the role (since he was meant to be the contemporary of the head FBI dude); c) McClane seems a bit dumbed down from #1 certainly and perhaps #3 as well.
Gold Medal: #1
Silver: #4
Bronze: #3
Not even an honorable mention, but for the icicle: #2.