I was supposed to attend Tuesday's A Good Day to Die Hard screening, with the intent of having a review up Wednesday afternoon. Alas, my wife got sick (nothing uber-serious), so I still haven't seen the film. But thankfully Brandon Peters was kind enough to whip up a review in my absence. I'm intending on seeing the film this weekend and will try to have a review of sorts up then, but in the meantime, let's let Brandon Peters give us his thoughts on the fifth and (for now) final Die Hard adventure...A Good Day to Die Hard
2013
We’re not a huggingfamily.
Let’s start out like this.
With that on the table, it should come as no surprise that A Good Day To Die Hard clocks in as anabsolute disaster and outright failure. That this is a film in the beloved DieHard franchise makes it hard to stomach. Bruce Willis shows up for a paycheck in film that seemingly goes out of itsway to make the viewer dislike it.
A token amount of plot: The fifth way that John McClane gets himself in the wrongplace at the wrong time is in pursuit of his son. John has to go to Moscow to find his sonJack. Jack is in prison for anassassination attempt he claims he was ordered to execute from Yuri Komarov, apolitical prisoner set to stand a trial in which he will expose high rankingofficial Chagarin. But Jack is a USsecret agent hoping to get close to Yuri to exchange his incriminatinginformation in exchange for Yuri’s escape to safety. John McClane gets mixed up in this by showingup at the right time, having to team with his resistant son in order tocomplete the mission.
Things just feel off right from the get-go. John McClane's insertion into the action justdoesn't feel natural or really needed at all. For the first 1/3 of the picture, it feels as if Bruce Willis is in a separate movietrying to catch up with another movie. Much of Willis's screentime in the opening reels consist of merely sitting and spurting out oneliners and really dumb dialogue to no one but himself. Willis just doesn't seem interested in thismovie and he feels shoehorned in. He seems acutely aware of this to boot. Willis and Jai Courtney also have zerochemistry. To say that they don't have the chemistry of Willis and Samuel L Jackson is one thing, but they will make you long for the comparatively rich relationship that Willis share with Justin Long in Live Free or Die Hard. There’s far too much forced scripted emotioninvolved in their relationship but none of it is fun and non of it works. Part of that might have to do with a poorperformance by Courtney. This is myfirst run in with him, but he seems destined to team up with Sam Worthington ina buddy cop film. It pains me to knowthat Aaron Paul from TVs Breaking Badalso auditioned for this role and would have been a PERFECT fit for Willis. He is of course a much better actor.
The direction of this film is just off-the-charts bad. In a Jason Bourne rip off nightmare, theseaction scenes are insanely over-edited and hard to decipher. The entire film isincredibly claustrophobic and doesn't try to give any time or care to anything other than the action sequences. I want to seeRussia. But they have managed to make every place visited in the filmlifeless, dull and just there when we should be basking in the idea of Die Hard in a foreign land. Theopening of the film devotes far too much time to one of the worst automobilechases I've ever seen. The chase has nosense geography, is completely implausible, and is (worst of all) incrediblyboring. There a lot of guns firing andthings crashing in this movie, but its all aimless, generic and dull. The word of the day is "uninspired".
I like the premise of this movie, doing the ‘Point A toPoint B in X Amount of Time’ plot. That’s cool. This script justneeded like five more drafts and a real director in order to even make itserviceable. And how about that Rrating? Aside from some swearing thisthing is incredibly PG-13. I’m wonderingif they didn't go back and ADR a bunch of “Fuck”s in to hope to get thatR. The PG-13 violence, gore andintensity was MILES…and here I say it again MILES better in Live Free Or Die Hard than in this R-rated sequel. This movie is short, but if anything,this movie’s plot and characters could have benefited from being longer (I wantto shoot myself from saying “make this longer”). The director doesn't want focus on dialogue,plot and character. He just wants to getto more of his shittily done action sequences. There are some big moments in the end, but due to this director’sinability to shoot anything good, at best I can say “things go boom”.
If you’re wanting to see a fresh Die Hard movie this weekend with an aged John McLane, don’t see this. I highly recommend you rent/buy/NetflixRichard Donner’s last film 16 Blocks. Pretend the Bruce Willis character is JohnMcClane and run with it. Before Live Free Or Die Hard I kindaunofficially looked at it as a final DieHard film. See that one this weekend(or something else in the theater. Scottsays Beautiful Creatures is good, socheck that one out). If you MUST seethis one, don’t be in any hurry. A Good Day to Die Hard is dull, genericand a complete disappointment as an addition to Die Hard series. Maybe folkswill finally lighten up about the fourth film now. If there is a sixth and final Die Hard (like Willis wants), would itbe possible for Jan de Bont to shoot the film, while John McTiernan directs viasatellite from prison like Spielberg did (not from prison mind you) for The Lost World: Jurassic Park? This series needs that magic one last time.
Grade: D
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