Without a
doubt, the Die Hard film series
represents one of my favorite film franchises of all time; I have been inside Nakatomi
Plaza, I never trust a game of “Simon Says,” and good luck getting me anywhere
near an airport during a snowstorm. Of
all the classic action heroes of the 80s and 90s, at least in my eyes, no one
beats John McClane, and for the past twenty-five years, he has been teaching terrorists
the deeper meaning of “Yippie ki-yay.”
Now, where the Rambo and Terminator series have clearly passed
their primes, the Die Hard property
has held up remarkably well, with 2007’s Live
Free or Die Hard offering an acceptably believable look at an aged hero,
thereby making reaction to a fifth installment one of optimism. A Good
Day to Die Hard would take Bruce Willis out of the franchise’s traditional
formula by centering the film in a foreign country, and based on the trailers, setting
the lone-wolf everyman in Russia proved just as entertaining as the previous chapters.
Even the discrepancy of releasing an R-rated
action film on Valentine’s Day wasn’t going to stop me from watching the character’s
kick-ass return.
Wow, after
A Good Day to Die Hard’s seemingly
resolute goal of defecating over every aspect that made the original Die Hard films so charming and iconic, I
would prefer to act as if this piece of garbage never happened…Bruce Willis,
how could you let this happen to the series that made you famous? Devoid of anything resembling a believable
plot, an engaging villain, or the sarcastic leading man we have come to love
over the years, the sad truth is that we are not watching John McClane; we are
watching an aged Bruce Willis inexplicably survive the most ridiculous death
traps in recent memory. The lack of a
villain was a huge misstep in and of itself, but nothing can justify Jai Courtney
as McClane’s lackluster and thoroughly unlikable son. Even if 20th Century Fox made this
sequel as a cash grab, I don’t understand how the studio could have let John
Moore and screenwriter Skip Woods do this to one of their most lucrative
properties. As far as I am concerned,
there are only four films in the Die Hard
series, so for your own dignity and in reverence to a departed character, stay
away from this disaster.
