Should movies be graded by a set of criteria?

[Chaerophon]

I sympathize with you.

Last week I watched all three of the earlier Die Hard movies in anticipation of the new film. I had never seen any of them before. The first movie was fantastic. The original John McClane was a gritty, "realistic" comic book hero - a tough, clever guy who got lucky a few times and managed to save the day. There were only one or two scenes that really stretched the bounds of believability, and I happily excused them as part of the movie's "comic book" undertones. John McClane wasn't invincible - he made his own luck and managed to survive. However, I was disappointed to discover that the subsequent films pushed that boundary further and further. By the end of the third movie, John McClane had become a bit slow-witted and the action was pure comic book fantasy.

The fourth movie was about as disappointing to me as it possibly could have been. The plot had the "bones" of a potential epic. John McClane's all alone again and he's got to take matters into his own hands, but this time, the entire continent is his playground. It could have been a fitting end to what had become a somewhat disappointing series of movies. The Mac guy was a great foil to the McClane persona. However, rather than attempt to reproduce the intelligence of the first movie, the grand scale of #4 served as an excuse to turn it into a ridiculous series of nonsensical stunts and action sequences. John McClane was no longer clever or and his survival was no longer a matter of "making his own luck" - he became an immortal killing machine who could launch speeding cars into helicopters.

It's a damn shame, but CGI eye candy appears to have killed the possibility of another "Die Hard" or "The Fugitive". The closest thing I've seen recently was the first Bourne movie; however, the second one left me thoroughly unimpressed.

Anyways, I agree with your complaint: I'm sick and tired of hearing that I should "expect" crappy dialogue and a complete lack of any realism from science fiction and action movies. Good science fiction should serve to bring our own world into a new perspective. That effect is ruined when the fantasy world is completely unbelievable. Mutants, zombies, robots, aliens, magic - they're all fine by me, as long as the dialogue is of a reasonable quality, their presence in the world can be explained, and the action surrounding them doesn't insult my intelligence.