10 Wildly Unnecessary Movie Sequels That Were Awesome Anyway
7. Die Hard With A Vengeance
Die Hard is an action classic in every sense of the word (whether or not it counts as a Christmas film is another story altogether). So, following that was always going to be a tough ask. Still, Die Hard 2 inevitably followed, raising the stakes but failing to come close to the quality of its predecessor. By that point, it seemed best to just let McClane's story die, hard (I couldn't resist).
So how do you make a third film that returns the franchise to its former glory? You shake it up a bit. Now, McClane is no longer restrained to one location and has a great partner in Sam Jackson's Zeus. Having the new villain, played impeccably by the great Jeremy Irons, be Hans Gruber's brother also gives a story-based reason for this all to happen to McClane again without it being forced.
And most importantly, John McTiernan, the director of the original Die Hard, returned to give a thrilling cat-and-mouse game between Simon Gruber and McClane. The film definitely lives up to the legacy of the first instalment, and if only they had stuck with that alternate ending, it might have even surpassed it.