The funny thing about Bruce Willis, is that the first Die Hard film, one of it's greatest points about quality, was how fragile McClain was. He wasn't a roided out combat god like the Stallone or Arnold films. He was a "regular" guy for the most part. He got hurt, a LOT, he was scared, he was frustrated, he was tired, demoralized, etc. All the traits that make a character human. You genuinely couldn't say, given how injured he was near the end, if John was going to survive that first film. But then the franchise ended up morphing into the very thing it was a counterpoint to. The latter Die Hard films he's basically an unstoppable god, complete with ridiculous actions that defy all logic and physics. Thus looping the franchise back to the idiotic tropes of the other 80s films, that it was trying to break away from.