A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

John McClane: "Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker."

By John Moore
With Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney and Sebastian Koch

I think Die Hard (1988) and Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) are some of the best action movies I've seen. I feel it might be a lost art--despite that, I decided to give A Good Day to Die Hard, the 5th and latest installment of the Die Hard series a shot.

John McClane learns that his son is being held prisoner in Moscow and decides help him out, only to discover that his son already has plans of escaping, not for himself, but to bring out a political prisoner out for the count of the CIA. Estranged father and son will have to work hand in hand to defeat the bad guys.

That film was by far the most disappointing Die Hard.

First of all, I am not sure how to stomach the dizziness inducing thirty, yes thirty, minute car chase with shaky cameras and absurd toll of car destruction. When this is finally settled, we are gratified with about five minutes of actual story line before the guns start blazing and buildings start exploding, which keeps going for another long while. I don't mind some of it, but this was really the only substance here.

I am not even starting on the introduction of Chernobyl as a plot twist. Really, Chernobyl? Can't you come up with anything more recent or is it the only thing you think people know about the USSR? Of course, they happen to travel the 700 km from Moscow to Chernobyl in less than a night, in a car stolen from Chechens, who apparently all have either dead bodies or high caliber weapons in their trunks. John and John Jr. happen to jump out of buildings randomly, then realizing that, fortunately, there is either a scaffolding or a swimming pool so they don't die.

John McClane was always grumpy and that's what made him such a fun character, especially in Die Hard: With a Vengeance, but here, that's pretty much all his lines. And I have to say, I love how Russians suddenly slip to talking English amongst themselves, don't ask me!

One (of the few) good things about the movie is that it gets all the references to the previous installments correctly. We get John's dirty white shirt, the yippee ki-yay, the rolling on broken glass, the fall of the villain, Frank Sinatra, etc.

I liked: Learning that the main actress was a professional chess player. The references.

I disliked: Pretty dull story, goofs, unoriginal, stereotypical...

20/100
Well, it's rare to see any movie being a fifth installment of a series to be still good and not just recycling of what used to work.