3. John McClane Jr.
The groan felt around the world! Its true, putting in a gun-toting son to the gun-toting legend seems as hackneyed and self-indulgent as naming the little blighter Jr! Narratively speaking its the film equivalent of boy racers adding a chrome spoiler to their Nissan Micra. Hes superfluous but so are coloured socks and even they can brighten some peoples days! In truth, introducing McClanes son to the action is no more a cliché than portraying the aging detective as an analogue player in a digital world or, on paper before the film was released, having a previous bad guys brother come back for some revenge two movies later. Die Hard With a Vengeance was a triumph, not only for Jeremy Irons sinister performance, but also because it succeeded in spite of itself. Having John McClane Jnr trigger-flicking alongside his too-hot-to-handle sister (reprised by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) will add a cyclical quality to the canon, and this will no doubt feel like a warm fuzzy blanket for the yay-sayers.