8. Live Free Or Die Hard (2007)
How The Original's Magic Was Stripped Away: Turned John McClane Into Superman
Live Free Or Die Hard isn't necessarily a bad movie when viewed as a standalone action flick (and good Jesus Christ is it better than the latest excuse for a
Die Hard movie), but it is one that fundamentally betrayed the entire ethos of the established series: an ordinary guy caught in an unbelievable situation. And there's an emphasis on the ordinary guy part. John McClane was just your average cop. In
Live Free, he's Superman. Okay, so you might get away with saying that - given the events of the past three movies - John McClane has got a ton of experience, so he might well have become a kind of Superman in the subsequent years. But the point of John McClane is that he doesn't really learn from his experiences - he's not interested in "being better." He's a few inches short of being a lout.
Live Free changed the character in ways that made him unfamiliar, and having seen him not once - but two times - in sequels that don't understand
Die Hard has tarnished the series' name.