Bruce Willis

It is sad, truly sad, to have to report that "Color of Night" is a disappointment in almost every respect. Richard Rush, its director, is not only warmly remembered for having made "The Stunt Man," one of the most original American films of the past 20 years, but that 1980 success was followed by the kind of miserable luck that never seems to afflict the untalented. For a variety of reasons, Rush has not had a film to call his own from that time to this.

One of the most hyped movies of the summer is "Armageddon," a nonstop barrage of action and sci-fi opening Wednesday and starring Bruce Willis. The $140-million film's blockbuster status is considered a foregone conclusion in Hollywood--despite the fact that Willis' last three movies, "The Fifth Element," "The Jackal" and, most recently, "Mercury Rising," didn't exactly break domestic box-office records.

On a chilly, darkened movie set that's been decorated to look like Earth's last Christmas, a figure lumbers in, festooned with clamps, canisters, hoses, gauges, bulbs, straps and wires. Both actor and hardware are enclosed in plastic. The plastic is inflated. "The boy in the bubble," someone announces. "The human condom," someone adds. Bruce Willis is ready for his close-up. The time? AD 2035. The character? A prisoner sent from the subterranean lair of humankind's last surviving few. The task?

Bruce Willis, as one of the most popular and highly paid stars in Hollywood, is familiar to most moviegoers. Joel Silver's name isn't a household word. But, as one of Hollywood's biggest producers, the controversial and press-shy Silver has brought to the screen such box-office hits as "Lethal Weapon," "Lethal Weapon 2," "Predator" and "Commando."

Although its ratings problems have apparently been resolved with an R rating awarded earlier this week, Disney's upcoming erotic thriller "Color of Night" is still mired in controversy: Another director has been brought aboard at the last minute, and new scenes for the film, which is scheduled to be released Aug. 19, were being shot Thursday.

"The Expendables 2"arrives jam-packed and fully loaded with main man Sly Stallone still leading the charge, followed by that wild bunch of aging brawn. There is some new blood in Liam Hemsworth and a lot of very old blood with nearly every AARP action hero in the book turning up at some point. And the kill count reaches into the ca-zillions. But somehow all that testosterone-infused blow-'-em-up craziness turns out to be kind of a kick. Director Simon West hasn't messed much with the basic formula of Barney's (Stallone)

After weeks of great expectations that haven't panned out, Hollywood may finally have a breakaway summer hit. "Die Hard 2," the seventh, and last, of the summer's high-profile movies, racked up ticket sales of $35.5 million during its 5 1/2-day opening--for the fourth biggest opening ever.

The streets of Hollywood are littered with the corpses of R-rated action trilogies that once were, with their Terminators and Aliens and Rambos all hobbling around on canes and pulling oxygen tanks. So it's no wonder that as the release of the fourth "Die Hard" film, "Live Free or Die Hard," draws near, Bruce Willis finds himself reaching out directly to angry fans to avoid that fate.

Given how successful its four predecessors have been, it's not surprising that "A Good Day to Die Hard" plays like an extended victory lap for star Bruce Willis and the entire "Die Hard" franchise. Not surprising, but not overwhelmingly entertaining either. Starting with the original "Die Hard" in 1988, over the next quarter-century the series has grossed an estimated $1.2 billion worldwide, a hefty sum which apparently convinced 20th Century Fox to commission this fifth time in the trenches for Willis' regular-guy action hero, New York City police Det. John McClane.