The funny thing about being a critic is it doesn’t actually require any qualifications.
Most film critics are failed directors…
Those that can…do. Those that can’t…criticise those that can.
Those that can’t come up with original ideas… quote cliches that were worn out 40 years ago.
I give your comment 3 stars
You suck!
Consider yourself critiqued! That’ll be $50.
The only qualifications to being a critic is having people listen to you.
prepared for the downvotes here, but I cut my teeth in journalism in arts criticism and deeply respect some of the people I’ve known in the field.
I think this kind of opinion - and the irony does not escape me that I’m performing a sort of criticism here - is rather misinformed.
Yes, anyone can be a critic in the same way that anyone who can, slowly and haltingly, play a C Major scale, can be a musician.
But I believe, like my metaphor, that if you were to dive into successful and recognized critic’s (/musicians) work you’d find a lot more depth than you’d expect.
If any — Who are the critics you dislike, and why? If any — who are the critics you do like (even begrudgingly), and why?
Willis’ early action movie career feels very similar to the problem John Krasinski has. Krasinski wants to be an action star, and in a vacuum is legitimately good at the roles, but he is so well known for comedy that there is a hurdle to overcome in the minds of the audience.
Willis was obviously able to overcome his image as a pure comedy guy thanks in part part to the strength of Die Hard.
I was too young to watch Moonlighting when it was on TV, so I never knew Bruce Willis as anything other than an action and drama guy until he was on Friends for a few episodes, and then I thought he was out of place.
I never watched the office so I don’t have that impression of him, but his face just looks too much like a Pixar character for me to take him seriously as an action hero. I did enjoy Jack Ryan but I felt like a different actor would’ve been better.
I feel that way about Jack Black. I could not take him seriously in King Kong.
Normally when critics don’t like it it’s a good movie.
Lots of critical have liked lots of good movies
For example, Deuce Bigelow, European Gigolo
On Rotten tomatoes the movies I’ve disliked most have 90s and my favourite movies are below 50
Critics don’t judge entertainment they judge “art”. Artistic films are not made to entertain, they are made for concept or to “get a message across”. A Critics opinion is not for the public, it’s for pretencious “artists”
You’re being downvoted but in a way you’re right.
You cant be a food reviewer and review a pepperoni pizza as “the worst soup I ever had”. You need to review things as what they set out to achieve.
Most film critics do judge on entertainment value though. The difference is that film critics are watching like 200 movies a year (or more) so a lot more stuff is going to seem like tired retreads to them.
Unpopular opinion but I don’t think this movie is good lol. I get that it’s very nostalgic and it has its moments but otherwise it’s not too different from any other late 80’s/early 90’s action film. Which is frankly not a high bar to achieve.
I understand how, in retrospect, it may feel like it isn’t groundbreaking, but do consider that before Die Hard, there really wasn’t anything quite like it.
A quote straight from Wikipedia:
It is considered to have revitalized the action genre, largely due to its depiction of McClane as a vulnerable and fallible protagonist, in contrast to the muscle-bound and invincible heroes of other films of the period.
While it did sort of fall apart and away from what made it great in the later sequels, I think it’s important to put the film into the context of when it was released and what it did to the genre.
All that to say, Die Hard fucking rules.
That was my complaint after Die Hard with a Vengeance. He became a little indestructible and lost some of the flaws that made the character exciting to watch. The first 3 are great in keeping true to the character, but the movies after DHwaV are just generic action movies borrowing a character’s name.
I maintain that Live Free or Die Hard is a much better movie when you watch the uncensored version. Yeah, a lot of the shit McClane goes through is not something any regular Joe would survive but the movie at least tries to make it survivable. And the uncensored version adds in a lot of the blood that should’ve been present with all of that bullshit in the first place.
Oh come on, Die Hard 4 & 5 show he’s clearly a flawed character with common average everyday struggles like being a deadbeat dad.
Exactly, this is 100% Seinfeld is Unfunny material.
In the eighties, action films preferred invincible heroes who slaughtered mooks by the dozen with casual disdain. Die Hard popularized grittier and more realistic action, with heroes who are vulnerable and suffer from character faults. It also popularized the concept of action movies confined to limited space, a setup that this very wiki calls ““Die Hard” on an X”. (For example, Speed is “Die Hard on a bus.”) Also, at the time it came out, people were shocked at the idea of a comedic actor like Bruce Willis being an action star. Nowadays, what with Tom Hanks Syndrome, comedic actors doing serious roles aren’t nearly so amazing. Younger fans might not even know Willis got his start in comedy.
I’m in my 40s and wasn’t aware of his comedy career.
I think that TV Tropes page was written like a decade ago, if that helps you feel better.
Same reason I like Dredd from 2012. They confined the story mostly to a location and one main enemy, and I think it helped a bit cause Dredd generally has no flaws and can’t be beat.
Just learned about the Seinfeld is Unfunny trope from your comment. What a helpful expression in describing media/pop culture progenitors!
Yeah it’s a good way of realizing why certain things from your past felt so amazing at the time, but are seen as less impressive to people just experiencing it now. It’s hard to describe just how awe inspiring The Matrix was to see in the theaters, or how incredible Golden Eye felt to play on the Nintendo 64 for the first time. Looking back, those things feel like one of a million other movies and games. But that’s only because a million other movies and games were changed forever because of them.
Or to take it a step further back, try getting someone without context before the modrrn era to understand how groundbreaking Casablanca is. So many tropes were invented in that movie, but watched without that understanding many would say “what’s the big deal ?”
It’s a good movie even now. But it’s a great movie with context
it was so different because he was an anti-hero, and he got visibly beat thoroughly and never stopped being a smart ass about it.
That’s because it set the mould, and dozens of copy cats followed the formula thereafter.
It’s like looking at Half-Life in 2023 as someone who never played it in 1999. It doesn’t look like much of anything; but that’s because everything that followed copied it.
Maybe so, but if they did it better then as someone who watched it later it doesn’t do much for me.
I’m curious which movies you would say did it better. I’m always up for a good watch (if I haven’t already seen it).
My kids watched it for the first time ever last weekend. They had no nostalgia or frame of reference for it and yet they both loved it - “the dumbest fun movie I’ve seen in ages”. We’re watching #2 tonight.
I mean nobody is going to call it some high art cinematic masterpiece. But it is a fun entertaining movie.
Well, maybe that’s my problem. It’s not some grand masterpiece of film and I didn’t find it very entertaining. Obviously that’s a subjective judgment on my part though.
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I suppose you had to be there at the time. For people who only watched US/Hollywood films it was wild. There hadn’t been much, if anything, like it before. Everything that came after it… came after it.
I don’t recall the reviews of the first movie but I vividly recall LOTS of articles exclaiming about all the unnecessary violence in the second movie. One news piece had some “expert” show how many times MacLaine would have died, broken bones, etc if it were real. So much free advertising.
Oh, it must be Christmas time
Critics for movies tend to shit on everything I like. Critics for video games tend to overrate games highly way too much.
