A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)
Yippie ki...oh wait. McClane is back! again, this time its old man McClane as he's off to Moscow to help his son. Yep it seems the Die Hard franchise has gone the way of the Police Academy franchise, both in sequels, almost, both have finally ended up in Moscow, oh and both were crap.
Right from the start this doesn't feel like a Die Hard film. McClane turns up in Russia much to the disgust of his son and straight away they are bickering at each other, its all very annoying. What surprised me more was the fact the film centres on 'Jack' (McClane Jr.) and makes 'John' seem like a spanner in the works. They make Willis seem like an extra or sidekick, like he's getting in the way. On top of that the constant moaning by his son with that pouting face of his really pissed me off.
The next major major issue here is the entire idea itself. The film has no real plot, its very weak, in the realms of who cares. The whole film is completely driven by set pieces, one huge action sequence after another that get more and more absurd as the film goes on. Right at the start there is a an admittedly impressive and frantic looking car chase sequence, it starts off pretty sensible and grounded but the longer it goes on the more insane it gets. There are cars, vans, trucks flying everywhere, titantic crashes happening every second which will presumably be killing many many innocent people, glass and debris exploding everywhere...yet all the while our heroes cruise along in invincible mode.
This is pretty much what the film is about, its like watching an in-game videogame sequence. In fact its like watching someone play the campaign mode in Modern Warfare, the film is on rails moving from one gigantic action sequence to the next, you know the main characters will never die despite what they're going through is so ludicrous and unsurvivable its becomes funny.
The other issue I had was the lack of decent villains and the fact there appeared to be exactly four main villains!, yes four. Of course as you can imagine there is some double crossing/plot twists involved which is why we have four villains but essentially none of them are in the least bit memorable. End of the day they are just Russians, boring sounding, gruff faceless bad guys that you can't enjoy watching. Mind you I didn't give a hoot about McClane's son either, whining little shit.
Some of the moments in this film are really so pathetic. When both of our heroes are caught and facing execution from one of the bad guys, this guy does the Bond thing. Instead of just killing the heroes he just talks and talks...even to the point where the writers make him do a little tap dancing to pass the time!. I mean seriously what the fudge??!! just shut up and shoot them! oh my god so lame. Of course both of the heroes escape, McClane Jr. cuts his plastic ties with a blade (would take a long time wouldn't it?), but I'm still unsure how the hell Willis is suppose to have become magically untied.
They even have the audacity to copy some moments from the original classic. Remember when McClane catches 'Hans Gruber' and he does his little switch into an innocent civvy? well that happens again here with...errr one of the bad guys. We also get another similar 'Hans Gruber' moment when he was dropped off the top of the Nakatomi Plaza building. Plus there seems to be a fixation in this franchise for main bad guys getting killed in helicopters.
So yep McClane is on vacation, as he points out a hundred times, yet I thought he went to Russia to help his son, so when did it become a vacation? who cares. Visually this film is faultless, its glossy and slick as f*ck, you probably won't see any better vehicle stunts and action for quite some time. So yes its entertaining in that mindless popcorn sense but that's it.
Its no proper Die Hard flick in my eyes, just a run of the mill factory line action film drone with such unbelievable unrealistic sequences the main characters should have died at least five times over. Good to look at sure but even if this was an independent action film I would still say the same thing. A good day to end this franchise methinks...zing!.
'I'm on vacation!'
4.5/10
