A Good Day to Die Hard is the fifth film in the franchise, and hopefully it's the last one, at least for awhile. Bruce Willis is back as NYPD Cop John McClane, and he fits into the character as well as he can after 20+ years in the series. He's about the only highlight in an otherwise awful, awful movie. The movie focuses on him heading to Russia to find his son, Jack, played by Jai Courtney, who he thinks is a drug dealer or something. Yeah, because in order for Jack to be a successful drug dealer, he had to travel all the way to Russia. Anyway, John finds out his son is working for the CIA on a top-secret nuclear weapons case, and the two team up like the father-son duo they are and head out to stop the bad guys.
Ugh. What's happened to this series? Honestly, I mean, the original Die Hard is probably one of, if not the best action movies of all time. What makes it so great is that it doesn't resort itself to mindless action and car chases, but builds tension and gives great payoffs because of it. It's the perfect mix of a being a great action movie that you don't have to think about in order to enjoy, but if you pay attention, it's even better. This movie is the complete opposite. A movie that is straight-up action for 97 minutes can be really great if it's done the right way. Director John Moore's action sequences are such a jumbled mess that you can't even enjoy them, and a five minute car chase feels like it takes hours to slog through. There's far too much cutting and editing in the movie that we can't even begin to understand what we're watching or why.
One of the great things about the original movie (and the third, Die Hard with a Vengeance) is that the villains are just as entertaining, if not more so, than McClane. Yeah, we know we're rooting for McClane, and know he's going to win, but having a great villain testing him throughout the movie adds to how fun and exciting it can be to watch. With A Good Day, the villains are just there as a means to move the movie towards its conclusion. Granted, this movie is more about the relationship between McClane and his son, but there needs to be real danger there; there needs to be a sense that the villain's have a chance at winning, or at least be enjoyable when they're on screen. Another major issue is that there's too many villains for one movie; just another example of the movie trying top itself, and the series, again and again.
I understand that action movies aren't going to make much sense in terms of real world scenarios. I get it: the more ridiculous the action, the more fun it can be. But a movie shouldn't treat it's audience like complete idiots. Without giving much away, I'll say that the final action scenes of the movie take place in Chernobyl. Yeah, that Chernobyl, the one devastated by nuclear fallout and has been abandoned for years; where the radiation level is so high that it may never be livable again. Minor characters walk around in HAZMAT suits so as not to be affected by the radiation levels. What do John and Jack do? They drive to Chernobyl, and just start shooting the place up in their street clothes. No need for radiation suits here! The McClane's are invisible! I can understand that you can't have a climatic action sequence while not being able to see the faces of your stars if they're hidden under a HAZMAT suit, but seriously, they couldn't have put the scene in another city in Russia? I'm not expecting the movie to be as accurate as can be, but ridiculous things like this made me hate the movie even more than I already did.
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| Yippee Ki-Yuck |
The only real redeeming thing about A Good Day is that Bruce Willis is still fun to watch as this character. He still has great timing and is just as spry of an action hero as his younger counterpart. But the rest of the movie is just downright shit. There really is no other way to say it. I really can't see there being a sixth Die Hard after this. Even though the fourth movie wasn't exactly terrific, I thought it was decent enough to warrant a fifth movie, just to see how it would go. This movie could have been so much more than it is. The idea of having McClane team up with his son is actually a really good idea. It could have taken a similar route as Skyfall did with James Bond, and realize that John McClane is getting old, and he can't do this kind of stuff too much longer. It could have been the beginning of passing the series onto his son; maybe a sixth movie is where John finally calls it quits, and movie seven follows his son exclusively, starting a reboot for the franchise of sorts. It would still honor the roots of the series, while updating itself for a new generation.
Instead, it's as if the writers just couldn't think of a way to get John McClane into Russia on his own, so they had to send his son over there. By the way, one of the things I don't get is that John keeps yelling, "I'm on vacation!" throughout the movie. I thought he was coming to Russia to get his son, so technically he's not on vacation?
It's really upsetting to see this franchise fall so flat on its face. Die Hard spawned so many knock offs that it was refreshing to see it stay true to itself with most of the movies in its series. A Good Day to Die Hard, though, is just as bad of a parody of the original as anything that came after it. As much as I can't see another movie being made, there's a big part of me that sees that as inevitable. The movie is tops at the box office right now, and as long as Bruce Willis continues to be willing to return to the role, I don't see them shutting the series down anytime soon. I just hope that the right director can be found who will be willing to bring the franchise back to its roots and remember what made this series so successful in the first place. Until then, A Good Day to Die Hard leaves a very bad lasting memory of a once great series.
Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Movie
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