It seemed that with every Die Hard that tried to make the scenario and the problem bigger and bigger, the quality of the filmmaking got worse and worse. So what does A Good Day to Die Hard do? Well, it makes the big concept even bigger by relocating the danger to Russia. Bad move...
A Good Day to Die Hard (from now on, it will be called AGDTDH) follows John McClane (Bruce Willis) who finds out that his son, Jack McClane (Jai Courtney) is in trouble in Russia and is in danger of being sent to jail or even worse. After being egged on by his daughter, Lucy McClane (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in the most redundant cameo ever, Bruce soon realises that his son is in much deeper trouble and has been leading a double life all along. When tap dancing, carrot-munching Alik (Rasha Bukvic) and Irina (Yuliya Snigir) take her father, Komarov (Sebastian Koch) hostage, its up to John and Jack to team up together to stop the biggest nuclear weapons heist in history taking place and a brand new war. And, that's about it...
The main problem with AGDTDH is that it feels like half a film, like someone has ripped out the heart that makes it a true Die Hard film and instead has left a soulless paint-by-numbers action flick in it's place that has a very simplistic and underdeveloped plot. There's literally nothing to it. With a couple of plot twists here and there, which could honestly be predicted, the film is mainly John and Jack arguing, shooting guns together and killing a few Russians before they stop the bad guys taking the nuclear weapons. What do they want to do with the nuclear weapons? Start a war of course. Why do they want to start a war? Well, I never really caught onto that really, it was just because, well... they wanted to. Do John and Jack at least provide some family conflict to keep the plot moving? Well, kind of, but they soon get on so well with each other that it soon becomes boring Father/Son banter (with a sickly sweet Father/Son moment thrown in the middle of the guns and fighting.)
Which leads onto the next problem with AGDTDH in the characters. Firstly, the stock Russian villains became so stereotypical that they are probably the most instantly forgettable villains in the entire Die Hard series. The only memorable one being Alik (with the previously mentioned tap dancing scene where he kicks the McClane's guns away with munching on a carrot - a surprisingly quirky character trait) but he barely has any screen time to make him a major player. I don't really want to blame the actors who played the parts for this lack of presence, but more to the editing and studio interference, because I will say it once again, but AGDTDH really felt like it was a film with the majority of it's scenes ripped apart (much like the edited down crappy version of Taken 2.) However, the real problems like with the entire McClane family. While it was nice that Lucy McClane linked this film back to Die Hard 4.0, her cameo was completely pointless, because she becomes a forgettable character who simply waves off her father to Russia and then welcomes him back with her brother. Jack McClane was a younger version of John McClane in name only - he had all the ass-kicking qualities of John McClane, but he just didn't have any of the comedic flair from the earlier Die Hard's.
Then there is the technical side of the filmmaking, which was the final nail in the coffin for AGDTDH. Director, John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, The Omen 2006) really gives the film a bland and boring feel, which is the complete opposite of what an exciting and mesmerising action film should be. He filmed the film in a 1.85:1 format - something which might seem trivial, but it made the film feel less cinematic and more like a TV episode of Die Hard. And then there was the shaky camera work which made it hard to decipher what was actually happening in most of the fight scenes.
While I can appreciate what AGDTDH was trying to do, nodding back to the original Die Hard with such scenes and shooting out the glass ceiling and introducing insane villains (such as Alik) that were meant to bring this film back to the glory days of Die Hard. However, the lack of a decent plot made the film insanely boring and confusing (I don't care what anyone says, an action film needs explosions and gun fights, but it also needs a decent story behind it.) It got to the point where right at the end of the film, one of the villains decides that because they have ran out of bullets to fire at the McClanes, then they will simply ram the building with the helicopter that they are flying.
Yeah, because that really made any sense (much like the film lacking a plot then...) It's almost like the screenwriters (Skip Woods and Roderick Thorp) just needed a way for the villain to go out in some kind of style.
It's a shame, because I was really looking forward to AGDTDH. While Die Hard 4.0 wasn't a masterpiece, I thought it did a decent enough job of dragging John McClane into the 21st Century. However, AGDTDH simply feels like a filler film - another film that brings one of the McClane family back before they can convince Holly Gennaro McClane (Bonnie Bedelia) to make an appearance and complete the family once more!
So, if you like a simplistic (to almost non-existent) plot with a heavily edited adult film down to a more family friendly action flick, then AGDTDH will be spot on. However, if you actually want a gritty Die Hard, like the earlier entries, then AGDTDH will be a serious disappointment.
* / *****
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