'Die Hard Collection' Blu-ray box set review

(C) 2007 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

In November 2007, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released a four-disc set titled Die Hard Collection. Issued simultaneously with the DVD and Blu-ray (BD)  premiere of that year’s  Live Free or Die Hard,  Fox’s first BD box set consists of the first four movies of the Die Hard franchise that launched actor Bruce Willis into action hero super-stardom. (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has released subsequent compilation sets, including the five-film 25th Anniversary collection with 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard.)

What’s In the Box?

The 2007 Die Hard Collection collects four BDs, one for each of the Die Hard films, in a slightly thicker-than-average multi-disc plastic jewel case. The discs themselves are first-generation Blu-rays with a storage capacity of 500 gigabytes and 1080p high definition video resolution. The set also offers lossless audio and smart menu technology that allows viewers to access menu options without leaving the films.

The titles in this set are:

Die Hard (1988) It’s Christmas Eve in Los Angeles. New York detective John McClane (Willis) must stop Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and 11 well-armed gunmen when they take over the L.A. office building where his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) works as a senior executive for the Nakatomi Corporation. Tired, alone, and outnumbered, McClane is the only chance Holly and 30 other hostages have to survive. Directed by John McTiernan.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)  Set two years after the events of the first film, Renny Harlin’s sequel takes place in Washington, DC’s Dulles International Airport, where another group of terrorists is causing Christmastime mayhem. This time, McClane faces off against the ruthless Col. Stuart (William Sadler), who holds the airport - and the airliners flying overhead - hostage if his demands are not met. Essentially a rehash of Die Hard’s plot, director Renny Harlin’s installment is more violent and less well-put together than the film it follows.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) Despite his previous heroics, NYPD Lieutenant John McClane’s life has taken a turn for the worse. Now divorced and back on the East Coast, McClane’s drinking and depression have earned him a suspension from the police force. Fate intervenes when a shadowy figure named Simon (Jeremy Irons) sets off a bomb in Bonwit Teller and threatens to explode more devices -unless McClane participates in a deadly game of “Simon Says.” Directed by John McTiernan.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007): An analog hero in the digital age, John McClane enters the 21st Century when a brilliant techno-terrorist named Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) disrupts America’s infrastructure via the Internet. Aided by a young hacker (Justin Long), McClane must stop Gabriel and save millions of Americans,including his college-age daughter Lucy’(Mary Elizabeth Winstead), from the impending disaster. Directed by Len Wiseman.

My Take

With the exception of Die Hard 2, the movies in the Die Hard collection are among the best in the action-adventure genre. Though they are variations on a narrative theme, the Die Hard films make a mostly-successful attempt to tell different stories with various settings and plot twists that keep audiences interested

The one quibble that I have with the content (aside from my feelings about Die Hard 2) is that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment chose not to include the unrated version of Live Free or Die Hard, which is the only installment in the franchise with a PG-13 rating.

As far as the box set goes, Fox’s first compilation earns a three-and-a-half star rating from this reviewer.

For the most part, the video transfers to high definition are good-to-excellent in three of the four movies in the Die Hard Collection. The exception here is Renny Harlin’s Die Hard 2, which features unnatural orange flesh tones and an odd, murky transfer barely worthy of the term “high definition,” The other three movies don’t have this problem, though. (Die Hard with a Vengeance has a grainy image, but that’s because John McTiernan shot it that way.)

The audio element of the movies is also good-to-excellent, although the quality varies from title to title.

Fox did an okay job with the extras in all but one film. Unexpectedly, the sole exception is 1988’s Die Hard, which had more special features on the 2001 2-DVD Collector’s Set than the studio ported over here.     

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has supplanted this set with the 2013 Die Hard: 25th Anniversary Collection,  which may have none of the negative issues present in the 2007 Die Hard Collection. Fans who want the entire series may prefer to skip the Die Hard Collection and get the newer set instead.

Blu-ray Specifications

Video Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Resolution: 1080p Aspect ratio: see individual releases Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1 Audio English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English: Dolby Digital 5.1 English: Dolby Digital 2.0 French: Dolby Digital 5.1 French: Dolby Digital 2.0 Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 Note: Audio options vary from film to film. See each disc’s audio options for details. Subtitles Die Hard English, English SDH, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean Die Hard 2: Die Harder English, English SDH, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean Die Hard with a Vengeance English, English SDH, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean Live Free or Die Hard English SDH, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean Discs Four-disc set (4 BDs) 50GB Blu-ray Disc D-Box Playback Region A

Miscellaneous

• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Blu-ray Release Date: November 20, 2007
• Run Time: 494 minutes