When it comes to home video releases, Die Hard is doing literally just that — dying hard. Now a thirty year old film (wow), quite possibly your favorite Christmas movie is available yet again for home viewing thanks to a fresh 4K UHD release that includes a second disc for the movie on 1080p Blu-ray as well as a HD digital code. Yippie ki-yay…
Having myself recently made the jump to 4K HDR, and not having seen Die Hard in several years, I was eager to go back to an absolute classic action film. It’s hard to believe the movie clocks in at nearly two and a half hours, because it flies by seemingly so much quicker than that due to expert pacing that balances character development with action beautifully. Surely you know the story by now, but if not, here’s a brief synopsis: John McClane (Bruce Willis) is a good, tough NY cop that flies into Los Angeles for Christmas with his wife (Holly, played by Bonnie Bedelia) and children. Some six months prior, his wife went to LA to take a career boosting job, and John had hoped she would have return with their kids by now. There is still a connection between the two, and on this night John is reluctantly attending a holiday part at the Nakatomi Plaza building in celebration of the firm’s financial success that year. Unfortunately, Hans Gruber (played by the late Alan Rickman), is intent on stealing some $640M of bonds in the Nakatomi vault. A carefully crafted plan is laid out and the mastermind calmly begins the process of his heist, but he did not account on the perseverance of one, John McClane.
The ensuing action and dialog between the characters, including Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) and several others, is classic and engaging. And even though I have seen this film a half dozen times, although not in several years, I was glued to the screen all over again, and that was only in part due to the impressive image quality this 4K transfer provided, and which I’ll elaborate on soon. If you didn’t know it already, Die Hard is one of those timeless movies that you can enjoy over and over again, and it’s thus no surprise that Fox pulled out a 4K release of it and is rumored to be working on another entry in the series.
Ok, obligatory summary and gushing about the movie over now, onto the specifics of the 4K release. Die Hard is not a flashy film per se — there are very little special effects or CG, which I think is partly why it stands the test of time so well. It’s a realistic-looking portrayal of a not too foreign situation. Being that the vast majority of the film takes place within the confines of a business tower, even in the aesthetics there’s not a whole lot of interesting things to look at, thanks to mostly subdued and ‘economic’ choice of decorations and so forth. But nevertheless, in terms of technical fidelity, the lighting and contrast as presented is quite agreeable. While not a very colorful film, when it came time to splash some color on the office aesthetics, it was done in a balanced, natural, and eye-pleasing way, which made viewing the film all that much more immersive. I didn’t notice any grain, or at least not any that detracted away from the viewing experience. The level of detail visible such as the stubble on McClane’s chin or even the old school computer monitors, was noticeable and a boost. Though a noticeable a step-up from it’s 1080p Blu-ray counterpart, it’s not a huge night and day difference — but it is enough to appreciate, and, I’m not sure that there’s any further image quality improvement to be had given the age of the source material.
As far as the rest of the package, it’s fine, but did not receive any sort of updated treatment. The audio is presented in DTS-MA 5.1, and sounded very good on my Yamaha YAS-207 with DTS:X support. For audiophiles, the lack of Atmos or DTS:X support is a bummer, but the quality of the image and the movie itself will likely make-up for that. That the release includes the Blu-ray and a digital code (although not in UHD), is nice, too. Extra features remain slim, and are just a copy and paste from a previous release, which in themselves were a copy and paste from yet another previous release. This basically means you have some commentary tracks and little else, which is a shame given the film’s 4K debut and 30th anniversary, but, it is what it is.
A good addition to any growing 4K library, Die Hard remains an excellent movie and Fox did a great job with the move to 4K here as well.
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