A Good Day to Die Hard (**½)
Directed
by: John Moore
Starring:
Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Yulia Snigir, Mary Elizabeth
Winstead
Seen:
March 9th 2013
**½ Out
of ****
I
grew up in the years of the third Die Hard movie (Die Hard with a Vengeance),
and for a while it was one of my favourite action movies. While it is not
completely up there anymore, it still remains one of my favourites. The first
Die Hard movie is, however, in my humble opinion, definitely one of the best
action movies ever produced, and the second one doesn’t fall far behind it.
This brings me to the last two movies in the franchise, which as stand-alone
action movies can find some sort of a market, but should perhaps not have been
called Die Hard movies. Die Hard 4.0 and A Good Day to Die Hard fall in
approximately the same spot for me, being stupidly entertaining but not as
engaging and memorable as the first three movies.
The
strength of Die Hard used to lie in the hero being a normal human being,
someone who gets hurt and fights through the pain and the suffering towards
unlikely victory over the villain. It didn’t lie in McClane (Willis) jumping
off fighter jets (4.0) and falling virtually through buildings (A Good Day) and
escaping with nary a scratch, but rather in his vulnerability and near-suicidal
drive to catch the bad guys at any cost to himself. The movies also always
relied on a strong villain, and in A Good Day to Die Hard it’s often not even
clear who exactly the villain is.
After
hearing of his son’s activities in Russia, John McClane heads to Moscow on
‘vacation’ to lend a helping hand, but he finds out quite soon that he might be
in over his head on this one. Jack McClane (Courtney) is in custody awaiting
trial but just as John arrives things start going completely haywire, as is
customary in Die Hard movies. A car chase follows that is nothing short of
spectacular, and which justifies the cost of admission almost on its own.
Plot-lines shift together with allegiances, and John McClane, true to form, runs
rampant though everything attempting to assist his son and survive to the end
credits.
A
Good Day to Die Hard is actually still enjoyable on some levels, but true Die
Hard fanatics should rather prepare themselves for something less than Die
Hard. The movie has some impressive (and inventively impossible) set-pieces, as
well as some flashes of the Die Hards of old in various sprinklings throughout,
and for this I will still give the movie a positive review. There are
wise-cracks and ill-advised bravery from McClane as per usual, but the
wise-cracks are less potent than I would have liked and the bravery perhaps
more backed up by a need to advance the plot than by the character’s actual
drive to succeed.
I am still a fan of the Die Hard franchise, and while there was still
some enjoyment to be had out of this one, I do now call for the end of the
franchise before it falls completely apart. When other movies promise to
out-Die Hard your Die Hard movie, some serious introspection is required, and
while this one had its moments, it’s really not Die Hard anymore. As a
stand-alone movie there’s some fun to be had, but as #5 in an enormous series
it’s a let-down.
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