Some dopey fuck watched Die Hard and came to the conclusion that the core ingredients of its success are these three things: a tall building, foot injuries and duct tape.
Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson has one leg. His family is trapped in a burning skyscraper. He uses duct tape to rescue his family on three separate occasions. These are the key scenes that the entire movie is built around.
This is (allegedly) a conversation that happened during production of Dwayne Johnson’s action film Skyscraper.
Asshole: Remember that scene in Die Hard where John MacLean steps on all that broken glass? What’s more intense than that?
Jerkoff: Lame! In MY movie, the hero doesn’t even have all of his feet!
Asshole: You, sir, have struck gold at the heart and soul of the Die Hard franchise. After all, Die Hard has always been about foot injuries. Wait, how does he keep his fake foot attached to his leg?
Jerkoff: With duct tape, IDIOT!
Asshole: Another staple of the Die Hard universe! Now if only this movie was set in a really tall building.
Jerkoff: Keep reading…
Asshole: *jerks off*
Nobody in production stopped to remind these lunatics that they missed the parts about a relatable hero, an incompetent bureaucratic support system, and a charismatic villain. This is what we got instead.
Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson stars as relatable everyman Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a former Marine, ex FBI Search and Rescue Agent and literal human giant! Throw in a Combat Surgeon for a wife and is there anyone more relatable?
Did someone say Charismatic Villain? We brought a guy in from Scandinavia. You know, the nicest place on Earth after Canada. Not enough for you? There’s also an eighty-five pound Japanese woman with a John Connor haircut. Scary! Don’t forget about the best friend’s betrayal in the first act because I sure did!
This isn’t the first time someone has tried to do their own version of Die Hard. Under Siege is just Die Hard on a boat. Speed was Die Hard on a bus. Speed 2: Cruise Control went back to the boat angle. We see the similarities, but we don’t care because they have their own things that make them special.
Under Siege had the brutal violence of Steven Seagal paired with Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones both trying to out-crazy one another.
Speed combined high octane stunts with the tension and suspense of disarming a bomb. Also Dennis Hopper and Jeff Daniels steal the show and add a layer of both realism and relatability.
Speed 2 had…um… Well, Sandra Bullock is always fun. Willem Dafoe and a jar of leeches…
Look, we’re not here to talk about Speed 2. The point is, redoing Die Hard can work if you tweak the formula enough and bring something more to the table.
As for this film, I honestly believe that someone in a pitch meeting said, “what if we did Die Hard, but like, in a skyscraper?” And no one corrected him because he had all the cocaine. And you don’t say no to the guy with all the cocaine.
Imagine George Lucas bought Die Hard and just re-did it with all the fancy effects and CGI that he wished were in the original. Seriously, a fucking Bantha could have walked through the shot with a dancing Twi’lek on his back and it wouldn’t have felt out of place.
The Rock has taken every shred of good will the American public has offered him and used it to churn out pile after pile of burnt dogshit. He has almost never made a good film. Why do we continue to love him?
He has the charisma and the fame to make a good movie if he wanted to, which means he is choosing not to make good movies.
Why Dwayne? What did we do to deserve this? Were you bullied by film students as a child? Are you a literal psychopath who wants to destroy the film industry for us all? Is this some elaborate WWE plot to get back at Triple H by saying, “look Hunter, I can make even shittier movies than you and I’m still the people’s champ!”
I won’t speculate on his motivations, but at this point, I will take Dwayne Johnson’s next movie as a deliberate act of aggression against the American Public.
In conclusion, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a box office terrorist.
Fuck off, Dwayne, and just let Die Hard die. Trust me, it doesn’t need your help.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It gets worse. They have announced a remake of Big Trouble in Little China with Dwayne playing Burton. No, I’m not kidding