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While the original is the better film (****), Die Hard With A Vengeance is probably the most accessible for those who (myself included) aren’t all that enamoured of the series’ high-octane claustrophobia.

Vengeance opens out the formula and has the added addition of Samuel L.Jackson, graciously not acting Bruce Willis off the screen. Plotless even by Die Hard standards, it ambles aimlessly around the flimsiest of set pieces, while all the support characters are underwritten clichés.

Yet, while the weakest of the three Jackson-Willis movies (There’s a great Pulp Fiction in-joke) the team are as always imminently watchable. Willis’s balding McClane seems less noble than before, indulging in mass murder with little or no remorse. Yet his new, less applied acting technique suits the hungover characterisation well.

There are some magnificently staged explosions, whole sections of New York being reduced to rubble and hurtling trains. I remember seeing this one at the cinema, with a bored, snooty-sounding man loudly shouting "10-9-8-7-" as if in criticism of the film’s single-minded dynamic. Thankfully, he then got up and walked out, leaving the rest of us to enjoy this dumb pyrotechnic show in peace.

Jeremy Irons, working with a German, and, briefly, American accent – both rubbish – seems to be having fun, yet no one else is when he’s on screen. A good actor wasted in an underdeveloped role, the scenes where he robs the Federal Reserve Bank particularly drag, causing the film to ground to a halt at the halfway point.

After this, little attempt is made to resuscitate it. When the basic set up of contrivance and irrelevance has faded, the final third seems to go into free-fall. The microscopic plot collapses before the end, relying more than ever on time-killing chase sequences to reach the runtime.

Yet while it may falter, Jackson’s racist Zeus – an unusual characterisation in mainstream cinema – keeps things ticking over. If nothing else, this is the only movie in the trilogy that opens with The Loving Spoonful’s Summer In The City.

• ****, you clown, ****!! The least of the trilogy, but still head and shoulders above most action movies - did you know it wasn't originally written as a Die Hard movie but was called Simon Says? Well, it was! Now then - I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Free I tell you! Two whole weeks off! Sky! Two weeks off! Sky! Um... Sky! Did you tape Sierra Madre on Friday btw? (NT) -- Griff, 14:34:29 06/03/01 Sun
  • My dad usually gets the Times and we're seeing him tomorrow - you know, the first day of my two weeks off - so hopefully he'll have it. If you haven't listened to it then don't, cos I'm sending you some U2 stuff and you can hear the whole thing! You're gonna love this tape I've done, I bet you any money! Two weeks off, yay! Sky! (NT) -- Griff, 14:38:31 06/03/01 Sun
    • Secret clicker... -- Griff, 14:40:10 06/03/01 Sun
      • Bastard! (NT) -- Rich, 15:12:22 06/03/01 Sun
        • Yes, I did tape Sierre Madre or whatever the fuck it was called... did you tape The Maltese Falcon? And tell me what the Pulp Fiction in-joke was then, go on! (NT) -- Rich, 15:14:08 06/03/01 Sun
          • I'm about to watch Big Brother 2, which I taped last night while Die Hard... was on. I'm a bit addicted already, I have to confess. Last night's included previously unscreened material. I watched the first five minutes and you saw Narinder's tits! Result! I'm gonna watch the rest now... (NT) -- Rich, 16:08:55 06/03/01 Sun
            • Wasn't the Pulp Fiction in-joke when Bruce said he spends all his time "smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo", which were in the lyrics to Flowers on the Wall on the PF soundtrack? God, I know everything, it's all up there matey! I think in PF he said something about "reindeer goat cheese pizza", which is a line in Hudson Hawk. (NT) -- Griff, 18:19:07 06/03/01 Sun
              • Do you remember the bit in Death Becomes Her when Meryl Streep asks Goldie Hawn when she first took the potion and she says "October 26, 1985"? Well, that's the present date in BTTF! I thought you'd be interested. Tonight's so-called highlight on Sky: Pocahontas II... might as well, it'll be crap but the original's a ***1/2. (NT) -- Griff, 18:24:42 06/03/01 Sun
                • Your name's Rich, and you eat pies, my name's Grigg, and I've got Sky! Little rhyme for you there. I did tape Maltese Falcon, yeah, I've been wanting to watch it for yonks. Expect your tape sometime towards the end of the week, mister... (NT) -- Griff, 18:28:06 06/03/01 Sun
                  • Which week? A week in 2002, piss winnet? Hey, I want more Big Brother talk on here! Come on, then, in which order would you do 'em? (And you have to do 'em all). I'd probably go Narinder, Liz, Penny, that Welsh bint and Amma. I really hate Amma's guts, y'know. And I was most impressed with your PF answer... you have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch you out, Grigg... (NT) -- Rich, 20:00:01 06/03/01 Sun
                  • I'm just listening to my Motown compilation CD, which has some Jacko songs on it. The first track is The Supremes with Baby Love. Good job he never recorded that one, eh, Jim? Eh? Eh? (NT) -- Rich, 20:01:01 06/03/01 Sun
                    • You Can't Hurry Love is one of the best songs ever. I really haven't been watching Big Brother that much, but I can say that I don't fancy any of 'em, although Penny's quite sexy at a stretch. I've watched and done notes for two of those four movies Billy got, in fact I just watched one now and I'm gonna go and watch the third one in a minute. Did I mention I'm on holiday? Lovely sunny day, and me and Bills are off into Weston to meet dad for some din dins and a natter. (NT) -- Griff, 08:12:56 06/04/01 Mon
                      • Erm, do you mind keeping hold of that U2 disc for me chief? Most kind, most kind. I taped off some of their stuff today so I'll lob that and my latest fantastic tape in an envelope and get it in the post soon as poss. (NT) -- Griff, 18:42:50 06/04/01 Mon