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#219 - A Good Day to Die Hard
John Moore, 2013
John McClane travels to Russia in order to find out why his son has been arrested but is soon dragged into the midst of a terrorist plot.
I used to think Live Free or Die Hard was a major disgrace to one of the best action film franchises ever - enough so to rank it as one of my ten worst movies ever a few years ago - but in recent years I've more or less mellowed out over it, though I did still consider it the weakest in the series. The extremely implausible hacking premise, the weak humour generated by the odd-couple pairing of Bruce Willis's hard-bitten protagonist and Justin Long's nerdy sidekick, the computer-generated stunts that managed to wipe out suspension of disbelief by showing all sorts of carnage that McClane shouldn't be able to survive even by the improbable standards established by the original film...it managed to engender more ironic amusement than genuine thrills, and even then that wasn't enough to make it truly enjoyable. A Good Day to Die Hard seems to promise more of the same kind of content, but whether or not it provides any more of the same entertainment value (or even any entertainment value) remained to be seen.
It's tough to get the balance right when it comes to making a sequel, especially when it's been almost thirty years since the original installment. Knowing that A Good Day to Die Hard was a deliberate attempt to write a sequel to Die Hard (as opposed to the other sequels, which started off as different stories before being adapted to include McClane), it only serves to highlight just how different to its predecessors it is while also drawing attention to the moments that it shamelessly mimics. This film once again introduces an estranged family member to add character-based tension to the already-high stakes - this time it's McClane's adult son (Jai Courtney), who also fills the role of the sidekick that has frequently snarky banter with McClane (a role taken by Samuel L. Jackson in the third film and Long in the fourth film). Unfortunately, Courtney's turn as a no-nonsense CIA agent whose main personality trait consists of resenting McClane is a major drop in quality from Jackson's belligerence or even Long's nervous irritation. There's nobody else of note here - not even Sebastian Koch from The Lives of Others gets much in the way of worthwhile material as the man that the McClanes must protect at all costs.
Action-wise, this film manages to be as physically impossible as its most immediate predecessor without even any of the entertainment. There are various death-defying stunts that frequently take one out of the movie - one especially egregious example involves the McClanes jumping through a glass window and falling through several stories worth of scaffolding with only a handful of bloody scratches between them. It is frequently matched and one-upped during its rather baffling climax and not in a good way. A Good Day to Die Hard consistently fails to provide anything approaching worthwhile entertainment - despite being the shortest Die Hard film by a considerable margin, it still feels extremely sluggish and drawn-out compared to the others. Willis manages the impressive feat of seeming to sleep-walk through his most iconic role even as he survives the unlikeliest of scenarios. The connections to the previous films seem especially insulting because of their attachment to what would otherwise be a very forgettable blockbuster. Then again, there's a chance this will look a lot better once a sixth film gets made. Until then, it seems like a good day for the franchise to die hard.
John Moore, 2013
John McClane travels to Russia in order to find out why his son has been arrested but is soon dragged into the midst of a terrorist plot.
I used to think Live Free or Die Hard was a major disgrace to one of the best action film franchises ever - enough so to rank it as one of my ten worst movies ever a few years ago - but in recent years I've more or less mellowed out over it, though I did still consider it the weakest in the series. The extremely implausible hacking premise, the weak humour generated by the odd-couple pairing of Bruce Willis's hard-bitten protagonist and Justin Long's nerdy sidekick, the computer-generated stunts that managed to wipe out suspension of disbelief by showing all sorts of carnage that McClane shouldn't be able to survive even by the improbable standards established by the original film...it managed to engender more ironic amusement than genuine thrills, and even then that wasn't enough to make it truly enjoyable. A Good Day to Die Hard seems to promise more of the same kind of content, but whether or not it provides any more of the same entertainment value (or even any entertainment value) remained to be seen.
It's tough to get the balance right when it comes to making a sequel, especially when it's been almost thirty years since the original installment. Knowing that A Good Day to Die Hard was a deliberate attempt to write a sequel to Die Hard (as opposed to the other sequels, which started off as different stories before being adapted to include McClane), it only serves to highlight just how different to its predecessors it is while also drawing attention to the moments that it shamelessly mimics. This film once again introduces an estranged family member to add character-based tension to the already-high stakes - this time it's McClane's adult son (Jai Courtney), who also fills the role of the sidekick that has frequently snarky banter with McClane (a role taken by Samuel L. Jackson in the third film and Long in the fourth film). Unfortunately, Courtney's turn as a no-nonsense CIA agent whose main personality trait consists of resenting McClane is a major drop in quality from Jackson's belligerence or even Long's nervous irritation. There's nobody else of note here - not even Sebastian Koch from The Lives of Others gets much in the way of worthwhile material as the man that the McClanes must protect at all costs.
Action-wise, this film manages to be as physically impossible as its most immediate predecessor without even any of the entertainment. There are various death-defying stunts that frequently take one out of the movie - one especially egregious example involves the McClanes jumping through a glass window and falling through several stories worth of scaffolding with only a handful of bloody scratches between them. It is frequently matched and one-upped during its rather baffling climax and not in a good way. A Good Day to Die Hard consistently fails to provide anything approaching worthwhile entertainment - despite being the shortest Die Hard film by a considerable margin, it still feels extremely sluggish and drawn-out compared to the others. Willis manages the impressive feat of seeming to sleep-walk through his most iconic role even as he survives the unlikeliest of scenarios. The connections to the previous films seem especially insulting because of their attachment to what would otherwise be a very forgettable blockbuster. Then again, there's a chance this will look a lot better once a sixth film gets made. Until then, it seems like a good day for the franchise to die hard.