Here's every film by director John Moore ranked from worst to best. John Moore is an Irish filmmaker who first broke through working in commercials, before landing his first feature film with 2001's Behind Enemy Lines. Most of his work has been in the action or thriller genre, and while his movies tend to not attract the warmest reviews, his action and visuals tend to receive positive notices.
A recurring theme in John Moore's filmography is working on sequels or remakes of popular franchises. He's been involved with both The Omen and Die Hard series and was once linked to X-Men: The Last Stand. Next up, Moore is attached to action film American Hostage, where an ex-soldier must rescue his kidnapped son from terrorists and Plane, a suspense thriller about a salesman with no experiencing flying a plane having to fly himself when his pilot dies.
Here's a ranking of John Moore's work to date from worst to best.
A Good Day To Die Hard
A Good Day To Die Hard is the fifth entry in the series, and easily the nadir. Bruce Willis aimlessly shuffles through a noisy, confusingly edited selection of gunfights and car chases while sharing little chemistry with onscreen son Jai Courtney. Willis' John McClane is also far from the everyman introduced in Die Hard, and can easily brush off what should be fatal injuries with a shrug.
Max Payne
Max Payne is a 2008 adaptation of the John Woo inspired video game franchise, but for some reason, it takes a full hour before a proper gunfight happens. A sullen Mark Wahlberg is badly miscast in the title role and the film is an uninvolving noir mystery where the secret villain is painfully obvious. The film at least looks gorgeous, painting New York as a snow-covered hellscape and the few action sequences are well-shot.
I.T.
I.T. is a 2016 thriller where Pierce Brosnan plays a businessman living in a high-tech smart house, who is stalked by a deranged I.T. specialist. While Brosnan is good the film is a lukewarm riff on stalker thrillers like Fatal Attraction that preys on common fears about privacy in the age of the internet.
The Omen
Horror remakes were rife in the 2000s, and it was The Omen's turn in 2006. This redo was seemingly solely motivated by the film's release date: 06/06/06. Moore's take is essentially the exact same story told with more gore and is easier the inferior version when compared to Richard Donner's 1976 classic. That said, it's got a great cast, which includes Liev Schreiber, David Thewlis and Mia Farrow, and some eerie visuals.
Flight Of The Phoenix
This glossy remake of 1965's Flight Of The Phoenix benefits from a solid cast, including Dennis Quaid, Hugh Laurie and Giovanni Ribisi. Like The Omen, this 2004 update doesn't hold up when compared to the original but it's still an engaging tale as the survivors of a desert plane crash must work together to rebuild their plane from the wreckage.
Behind Enemy Lines
Behind Enemy Lines is John Moore's directorial debut and stars Owen Wilson as an American pilot shot down over Bosnia while Gene Hackman (Unforgiven) is his commanding officer - basically a flipping of his role in Bat*21. The film works best as a relentless chase, where a desperate Wilson has to stay one step ahead of his pursuers, though it tends to slow down whenever exposition crops up.