Die Hard with a Vengeance: Die Hard 3 (1995)

It's now several years later, and for the first time it's not the Christmas season. Which is too bad, that was quite a nice motif they had going, but it doesn't make sense to the big movie companies when switching from the Christmas release schedule to the Summer Blockbuster release schedule to put out a summer-time movie that takes place at Christmas, because apparently, we audience members are too dumb to imagine a winter movie in the summer. Or something.
Theoretically, this movie is a sequel to Die Hard and Die Hard 2: Die Harder. Bruce Willis is in it, that is certainly the same. He plays a policeman named John McClane, which is also the same. And that's just about it. This McClane never was an L.A. cop, and is estranged from his wife and kids who live in L.A. In fact, there is no reference to the second movie, though there are numerous references to the first, even a brief flashback of the main baddie dying at the end of the film. I'd like to think of this as the alternate universe sequel to Die Hard - the one where McClane has gone from being a good cop with the occasional disagreement with his immediate superiors, to a rogue cop, alcoholic who cares more about his own pride than he does about his wife or children.
I missed this movie when it came out and had to verify the date on IMDb. This film turns out to be nothing like the first two really. It's not about a man doing whatever it takes to save his wife. This is a buddy cop movie, well a buddy movie where the main buddy is a cop and the other buddy is Zeus, a bad-ass shopkeeper who gets tangled up with McClane.
McClane has reached true bad-assness in this third film. It's the first time that we see him go all Super Saiyan. Nothing can stop him, not bullets, not exploding subways, not flooding aqueducts, not falling 50 feet and landing flat on his back. In fact the only thing that even gives him more than a second's pause is calling his wife, whom we learn that he hasn't spoken to in over a year. There's nothing that a little bandage, an aspirin or a cigarette can't heal. McGoku is beyond the human reality of toughness.
The baddie in this installment is a combination of the first two - a German robber and a military man. This time the baddie pretends to be a psycho out to get McClane, which is of course a diversion, but towards the end, Simon pretends to be a terrorist to insure that the authorities are looking in the wrong direction. The group of baddies includes a woman for the first time, who is like some type of East German trained Assassin Savant using her wickedly curved knife, but it's not enough to save the film. Maybe if they had her fight McClane or Zeus at some point, but they don't and the movie was lamer because of it.
This film brings Samuel L. Jackson on as Zeus, and Jeremy Irons as the villain Simon. But Jackson and Irons cannot save this film. Maybe if Jackson had been allowed to bring his light sabre and if Irons or his knife-wielding babe had actually gotten into a physical altercation with McClane. But they didn't.
Oh, one last thing, the tossing in of "Yippie-kai-yea mother fucker" has taken the phase from being a witty if irreverant offhand response to a mantra repeated when you take out the first of the main bad guys.

Die Hard with a Vengeance at IMDB