A Good Day To Die Hard - "The shit we do for our kids. Yipee Ki-Yay Motherfucker!"
A Good Day To Die Hard was put into the hands of two half-whits who don't know how to make good motion pictures. Firstly it's directed by John Moore who's previous spectacular credits include "Max Payne" "The Omen" "Flight Of The Phoenix" & "Behind Enemy Lines". Get me a bucket. Secondly it's written by I believe William Shakespeare's great great great great great Grandson "Skip Woods" who won several Oscars for his genius scripts for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" "The A-Team" & "Hitman". Combining these two forces is a recipe for disaster and the end product is a train wreck. Clocking in at 92 minutes this is the shortest of the Die Hard films but we were promised it was going to be fine because it's rated "R". Throw in a couple of "Fucks" a few head shots and let John McClane finally say "Yipee Ki-Yay Motherfucker" and all the fans will be happy. WRONG. What we have here is an incoherent shit-pile mixed with explosion porn, shockingly bad dialogue and NO VILLAIN.
There is no story in sight, John McClane is made aware his estranged son Jack McClane (Jai Courtney) has a bad rap sheet in Russia and is to charged with a myriad of crimes so John get's on a plane headed for Russia because "Family is Family". But not before there's a completely useless cameo from Lucy McClane his daughter from the previous Die Hard who serves up some "awww shucks here we go again" dialogue that is positively cringy. So John lands in Russia with basically zero information and somehow finds exactly where his son is being held and explosions ensue. We then learn as they reunite that Jack McClane is CIA and deep undercover trying to extract a Russian political fugitive and our senses are assaulted by a nauseating 15 minute truck chase through Moscow. That's where the story ends. For 90 minutes John, Jack & Mr. Russian run from the "Bad guys" where some spoon feeding to the audience is needed because there isn't even a hint as to what their motivations actually are. Something about a "file" is mentioned at one point but then it switches to "Enriched Uranium" but by this point we've given up caring and just hoping that the stripping scene in the trailer is coming up soon. Spoiler alert, the stripping scene was cut from the film. FUCK YOU. It's so unnecessarily convoluted and ridiculous you get to the point where it can't get any worse......but then we're introduced to the "tap dancing carrot eating pack leader of bad guys". The supposed "villain" of the film "Alik" literally performs a tap dance sequence for John & Jack whilst eating a carrot when trying to intimidate them. "I could have been a dancer!"
As we tumble further down the rabbit hole of vomit inducing incohesive scenes we arrive at Chernobyl where a bunch of useless double crosses happen and the invincible John & Jack fight off hoards of henchmen without EVER having to reload. The action sequences are so implausible that I just wanted to shut my eyes and remember John McClane walking barefoot over broken glass in Die Hard 1 and sustaining actual realistic injuries. In this film there are a plethora of scenes where our protagonists are flung off buildings into conveniently placed scaffolding and simply stand up without a scratch. I realize it's an action film, but this is set in the Die Hard universe where the first 4 were semi-realistic and had coherent story lines and memorable villains. It's a real shame that this script was green lit and a director was hired that Bruce Willis could walk all over. His performance isn't charismatic or memorable. It looked as if he didn't even want to be there. Also a little gem in the film indicates that soon Australian made Jai Courtney will be taking over the Die Hard franchise when John says "Hey don't laugh this will be you in 5 years". Perhaps that's what Die Hard needs, for John to retire the badge and pass it onto his son. I'll give the film credit for it's use of slow-motion in the end scene but that's it. Avoid at all costs. 0.5/5
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