Aaw, yeah, it’s A Good Day To Die Hard! Ha, yeah, another delightful, action-filled installment of the perpetual John McClane franchise. I figure as long as Bruce Willis is fit enough to be in these, we’ll keep seeing them. And as far as the action goes, you will not be disappointed here. If you’re looking for much else, well, you know, never mind.
Aaw, yeah, it’s A Good Day To Die Hard! Ha, yeah, another delightful, action-filled installment of the perpetual John McClane franchise. I figure as long as Bruce Willis is fit enough to be in these, we’ll keep seeing them. And as far as the action goes, you will not be disappointed here. If you’re looking for much else, well, you know, never mind. I’d say this chapter of the Die Hard films is not as good as the last one, Live Free or Die Hard, so use that as your personal guide.
This time around, John McClane has located his son, Jack, and he’s in prison in Russia. So, McClane goes to try to help or talk to him, or whatever a person could possibly do when they find out their kid is in a Russian prison. Of course when he gets there he discovers Jack is really an undercover CIA agent trying to stop a nasty Russian guy from stealing a bunch of weapons grade plutonium and causing tons of trouble.
A Good Day To Die Hard is an efficient 97 minutes long. There is very little fat on this movie. It’s a lean, mean, action machine. You get a little bit of set up, just so we know what’s going on, then it’s right into the explosions and guns. there is some of that irritating shakey camera nonsense, but when it counts, the camera stops and shows you the good stuff. There are also some great slow motion moments to really let you enjoy the carnage. Oh, sure, they stop a couple times to do some blabbity-blab just to fill you in on why you should care about any of this, but it’s not long at all before someone says, “Ok, let’s go kill some bad guys”, and they’re off doing just that. And yes, that actual line is said.
This, of course, has a dual effect. Yes, the action is chock full of fun and is worthy of watching, but the whole film has this hurry up attitude. It’s like eating a good meal so fast you hardly get to enjoy it. Yes, it’s junk food. It’s quick and tasty, but it has no truly redeeming value. Willis’s McClane is often reduced to just yelling some quip from a moving vehicle or while running. It sort of feels like they figure we know who John McClane is by now so they don’t really need to explore his character any more.
Most of the script is pretty standard stuff – from about 20 years ago. Russian criminal stealing material to make nuclear bombs? They even make an old reference to Ronald Reagan. Then there’s the whole estranged father/son ting going on. Nothing new there. Who wrote this stuff? Oh, it’s Skip Woods, who wrote Swordfish, Hitman, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The A Team. What else do you need to know? Oh, the director? It’s John Moore who directed Max Payne, Behind Enemy Lines and the Flight of the Phoenix remake. This is all pretty middle of the road stuff and clearly it’s a step down in the creative team.
Bottom line here? Bruce Willis is fine. He knows this character and what to do. Everyone is thoroughly servicable and doing their part. All in all this is a fine action film if all you want is the action. The rest is very generic and serves only to JUST move things along. But the action sequences are fun, exciting and have a bit of style of their own. Frankly, I really enjoyed that aspect of A Good Day To Die Hard. If you like brainless action movies and this particular franchise, you’ll have fun. It’s three gun-toting, incendiary grenade-throwing kittenhands. Boom.
~ Neil T. Weakley, your average movie-goer, actually hoping we get one more Die Hard movie to wrap up this franchise. You know, so it goes out on a high note. 🙂