10 Movie Franchises That Started Great And Then Fell Off A Cliff

5. Die Hard

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20th Century Fox

Most people seem to agree that Die Hard was much better left alone as a trilogy, and while the fourth entry wasn't as bad as some people claim, the fifth one most definitely was.

Die Hard is nigh-on untouchable in its position as the greatest action movie ever made, and the sequel serves its sole purpose of delivering a virtually identical movie in a different setting with a much bigger budget. The buddy formula worked a treat for the still-underrated Die Hard with a Vengeance, and after three solid adventures John McClane earned the right to retire his white vest and enjoy retirement.

Of course, no big-name franchise is ever truly over, and while Live Free or Die Hard is a solid actioner, it most definitely isn't a Die Hard movie, with McClane now apparently bulletproof and capable of taking down fighter jets with his bare hands.

A Good Day to Die Hard marked the undoubted nadir, with the series once again leaning into the tropes of the buddy movie, except this time we had Bruce Willis trying to generate some witty back-and-forth with a charisma-free Jai Courtney, as the script's idea of some father/son bonding was to have the McClanes avert global disaster by destroying half of Russia in a banal exercise in by-the-book studio-mandated filmmaking.

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