I can’t smoke pot at home anymore because my kid is being held hostage by Russian gangsters. So I do it at the movies! This week: the fifth film in the Die Hard franchise doesn’t make me happy.
I didn’t go into A Good Day To Die Hard expecting anything great. I got blazed and expected some things to blow up and some dudes to act like badasses and I would have been fine with that. But this movie kind of left me feeling a little lousy in the heart.
I love Die Hard. It took Bruce Willis, who previously had been a jamoke on Moonlighting, and turned him into a first-class action star. And it wasn’t through being a roided-out indestructible monster. John McClane got seriously crapped on in his brutal journey through Nakatomi Plaza, including the seriously memorable scene where he gets broken glass all over his bare feet. The last one, Live Free Or Die Hard, didn’t reach those heights but it was at least still fun.
Here’s what happens in the new one: John McClane goes to Russia to bail out his son who turns out to be a CIA agent and there’s an evil Russian government minister trying to kidnap a rich Russian guy. Then they jump out of windows and blast dudes with assault rifles and crack wise every once in a while. That would be enough for me with any other movie, but it’s not for Die Hard.
A Good Day To Die Hard isn’t fun. It’s just confusing. The dude who made it can’t shoot an action scene to save his life. There’s a car chase towards the end in which you legitimately can’t figure out who’s driving what car. The shootouts happen all the time and they don’t ever accomplish anything. It’s just dumb to see McClane and son plow through hordes of faceless Russian goons.
It’s like a really bad video game. Everything is gray and nothing has any consequence. There’s nothing half as cool as McClane with glass in his feet. You feel like if he got shot he could just hide behind a column and regenerate health like in Halo. His son is completely worthless as a character. There’s nothing about this movie that is Die Hard and the guy who made it should be ashamed of himself.
Disclaimer: I fixed all the typos and grammatical mistakes but kept everything else in.