Well, its time for a new review on the blog rather than a revisitation, which will be the first of the new year strangely enough! So, the review in question will be on the action film, A Good Day To Die Hard, which is the latest and most probably the last Die Hard film unless they make another in the near future.
Now, I've put off watching this film for years based on its bad reputation and how poor it is in contrast to the previous Die Hard films but I finally decided to give it a go and see what its like.
So, with that said let's take a look at this one and see how it stacks up against the other movies in the franchise...
And the usual warning is coming up...
PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!
STORY
So, I will just quote a bit of the story from the Wikipedia webpage for the film below.
"In Moscow, Viktor Chagarin, a high-ranking, but corrupt, Russian official plans to incriminate former billionaire and government whistleblower Yuri Komarov in an imminent rigged trial unless Komarov hands over a secret file believed to contain evidence incriminating Chagarin. Separately, Jack McClane, who has been arrested after an assassination attempt, negotiates for a shorter sentence by offering to testify against Komarov. Meanwhile, Jack's father, NYPD Detective John McClane, who has not been in touch with his son for several years, has learned his son is in trouble and, taken to the airport by his daughter Lucy McClane, flies to Russia to help him..."
THOUGHTS
So, after having finally decided to give A Good Day To Die Hard a go, I can safely say that this is the weakest and most disappointing Die Hard film of the series. The premise of the film however itself does hold some promise with John going after his son Jack to help him and the two of them even have some decent bonding moments in the movie. However, the film itself is just a boring mess with loud action scenes and very confusing story and very unappealing villains. And after waiting six years in between Die Hard 4.0, its disappointing to see this was what we ended up getting.
PERFORMANCES (No notable scenes as such this time!)
As for the performances, things are definitely a mixed bag here.
Starting with Bruce Willis, who actually to his credit, reprises his role as John McClane pretty well here as he is still the same likeable, wisecracking guy, who remains near impossible to kill and literally laughs in the face of danger. Willis himself also has one or two amusing scenes in the film such as the one where McClane is driving a land rover over the roofs of some cars on the Russian freeway and he get's a call from his daughter, Lucy and he tells her he will call her back. Bruce also has the odd little moment of banter as McClane with his son, Jack, especially in one scene where McClane offers to give Jack a hug and they say "We're not the hugging type" or something like that anyway!
Jai Courtney next is actually not bad in his role as Jack McClane, who is an undercover CIA agent working in Russia to try and protect a political prisoner, Komarov and he is joined by McClane as they fight against the bad guys, who are out to capture Komarov. Courtney also does have one or two good moments of banter with Willis and their father and son dynamic is one of the few successes of the film itself.
Sebastian Koch on the other hand delivers a pretty bland performance as the political prisoner, Komarov, who Jack tries to protect but he himself isn't all he appears to be in the film. Koch's character here is basically totally underwritten so there is not much for him to really work with here, so I guess he does what he can to be fair.
Yulia Snigir is also pretty bland (but she is at least pretty!) and forgettable in her role as Komarov's daughter, Irina and it soon turns out that she herself is a baddie and uses her dad later on (or does she???!).
Sergei Kosnikov also provides a pretty so-so performance as one of the villains, Viktor Chagarin, who is out to try and silence Komarov and prevent him from testifying against him. To be fair to the supporting actors it really comes down to the material here, so I probably shouldn't be too hard on them really.
Radivoje Bukvic however is probably actually the strongest of the supporting Russian cast in his role as Alik, as he actually does provide a bit of colour and humour into performance that does at least help him stand out a bit more in the film.
And last of all, Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes a brief but welcome return as Lucy McClane, who appears at the start of the film as she drives John to the airport, so he travel to Russia to help Jack. And Winstead does share a couple of nice moments with Willis in the film but its a pity that its no more than that but I guess they wanted to make Jack the focus of the film this time.
DIRECTOR
As for the director, John Moore, well...I have to say he actually misdirected this one lol! Yep, Moore's direction in the film is pretty dull and for the most part, he fails to elicit any engaging performances from the cast and he actually mishandles the film's action scenes as they are just loud and boring. Moore himself prior to this film, also directed the poorly received live action version of Max Payne (based on the video games) so its no surprise that this would also be a disappointment. Basically they should really have talked him out of directing it!
MUSIC
Music wise, the score is by Marco Beltrami, who is a very good composer overall, however his score here isn't that memorable and is pretty standard action score filler but to be fair the film he is working on isn't memorable either, so its stands to reason this score isn't one of his best. However at the same time, the score did strike me as one of the better aspects of the film itself.
FLAWS
So...flaws...yep A Good Day To Die Hard has some!
For starters, I just have to say the main problem with the film is that despite the better efforts by Bruce Willis and Jai Courtney in their roles as John and Jack McClane, its the villains that really let this film down as they are really dull and boring. The villains here basically have no presence or charm to them (although Alik almost passes for that but not quite!) especially given the previous villains in the Die Hard series. I mean even though Die Hard 2 and 4 had fairly weak villains (Colonel Stuart and Thomas Gabriel respectively) you did at least understand them and what their motives were but here the villains make no sense and there's frankly nothing to them.
There are also some really stupid moments in the film too where we see that McClane is almost virtually indestructible such as the one where McClane drops out of a land rover after it rolls over about 10 times and he just gets up with no broken bones or bruises! He also later on appears to be radiation proof as he travels to the site of the Chernobyl disaster without even wearing any radioactive gear whereas the villains are wearing them! And further to this, there is a scene much later on where there is a huge explosion and flames are everywhere, yet somehow McClane doesn't get burned! So, yep there you go, John McClane is break proof, radioactive proof and of course even fire proof!
Then there are also some really stupid moments in the film that include the scene where McClane and Jack are ambushed by enemies as they try and capture Komarov and all of a sudden, McClane grabs what looks like a big M60 machine gun and starts blazing away at the bad guys! Its one of the dumbest scenes in the Die Hard series and that's saying something, especially as McClane had a previous tangle with a jet fighter in Die Hard 4.0! But here, the action really does feel pretty forced and its like the director just wanted to do it big and over the top.
Anyway that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So, to sum up, A Good Day to Die Hard, ISN'T a good movie, unfortunately its a very poor, less than mediocre and bitterly disappointing final entry in the series that really doesn't belong there. However to be entirely fair, Bruce Willis still reprises John McClane well enough and he's still a likeable character and he does have a fairly decent relationship with his son Jack in the film. But the film itself is something a Die Hard film shouldn't be and that is boring, as my attention left the building after about 50 minutes into the movie.
So, A Good Day to Die Hard was a film with possible potential and its good to see the return of John McClane, its just a shame that the film that surrounds him is a real mess and one that isn't worth repeated viewing.
And with that I will give AGDTDH a rating of:
3 out of 10
So, that's it for now and I will be back soon with another post of some sort or other.
Until then its bye for now!
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