9. A Lack Of Humanity
A large part of the series' charm to this point has been the underlying humanity of Bruce Willis' immensely popular protagonist John McClane. When he's crawling through the vents in the first film to save Holly, bloodied and tired, he sarcastically says to himself, "Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs", a classic line that succinctly cements McClane as an everyman to audiences the world over. This isn't some burly action hero like Stallone or Schwarzenegger frequently play; this is a guy we can sympathise with, an average Joe who is hurled into an impossible situation and has to react. As such, we're scared for him because he's vulnerable, but in this film more so than any of the others, that fear is gone. McClane is a ruthlessly efficient action hero who leaves the blood and bruising mostly for his son, while he gets to coast through all the mayhem without getting too banged up. The inherent problem is that when you have your protagonist being slingshotted through windows by helicopters, it sort of makes you stop caring for his well-being when he just dusts himself off and continues with his day. Live Free or Die Hard might have had its share of absurd moments, but when he dove out of a moving car, you could at least see that he felt it afterwards.