In the fifth installment of the Die Hard franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard, we find our famous New York hero John McClane (Bruce Willis) making his way to Russia in order to make amends with his alienated son Jack (Jai Courtney) who also has landed himself in a Russia prison. Unbeknownst to John, Jack is on a mission and his dad manages to screw things up and now they must work together to help keep a snitch billionaire alive while using him to track down a file that could incriminate some very high level officials and prevent a nuclear weapons heist that could threaten the entire world.
The tank chase scene in Fast Six was pretty explosive with the tank destroying any car that got anywhere near it or in the way of its blast but the first full on action/chase scene that follows the reunification of John and Jack is equally, if not more, impressive. I say this only because of the amount of destruction they cause in Moscow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cars destroyed, blown up and smashed in a single chase scene than I did in A Good Day to Die Hard, literally any car the chaser or chase past ended up getting hit, it was a pretty impressive scene.
The action is as far as the movie goes. There effects work is really good and most of the action sequences are a lot of fun to watch, but outside of those scenes there isn’t much else to love about the film. The story was mediocre, the acting was flat and came off like everyone was just going through the motions, and the script wasn’t that strong, Bruce Willis’ one line snickers weren’t even funny. Jai Courtney was solid in his action performance but he didn’t do much for me when it came to the acting, it was either over the top or underperformed, he rarely found that ideal middle ground where I could believe everything he was saying.
Much like the title of Chris’ review states, A Good Day to Die Hard is a mediocre film that was made to exploit the fans’ love of the franchise for some easy cash. Sure the film had its moments and the idea of a hardcore New Yorker like McClane being thrown into another country way outside his normal comfort zone was a good one, but the lack of a decent story and exploration of the various characters makes it a difficult film to engage with and easy Die Hard to forget when one looks back on the series.
That being said, the Blu-ray version of this film looks and sounds fantastic and comes with two versions of the film, the theatrical version and an extended cut. I watched the extended cut because I thought there might be a chance it could be better than what I had heard about the film.
In addition to the two different cuts, a DVD version of the film and a digital copy, the disc comes with a slew of special features which includes:
-Commentary by Director John Moore and First Assistant Director Mark Cotone
-Deleted Scenes
-Making it Hard to Die
-Anatomy of a Car Chase
-Two of a Kind
-Back in Action
-The New Face of Evil
-Pre-vis
-VFX Sequences
-Storyboards
-Concept Art Gallery
-Maximum McClane
There is enough here to make collectors drool even if the film isn’t that great so if you’re a full on enthusiast then I would recommend picking up the title but, if you’re not, then I’d just rent it and save yourself a few bucks.
Movie Rating: A subpar Die Hard film that has its action packed moments but fails to deliver anything special (5.4/10)
Blu-ray Rating: (6.5/10)
Recent Comments