Very few action franchises bolster the kind of success that Bruce Willis' Die Hard franchise has. The first in the series is arguably the greatest action film ever made amongst fans and critics while the third film Die Hard with a Vengeance is considered one of the better sequels to ever grace the silver screen. However as of recently, the Die Hard franchise has become a shell of itself, often giving the appearence of "selling out" and straying from the formula that made it successful in the first place.
The fifth installment of the series, A Good Day to Die Hard follows John McClane (played by Bruce Willis) on a trip to Russia to help out his seemingly wayward son Jack (played by Jai Courtney). Much to the surprise of John, his son is now a CIA operative who is trying to prevent the heist of nuclear weapons from a paramilitary group. Along the way, father and son must learn to both coexist and work through their issues for the betterment of the entire western world.
For all the hoopla and explosion-riddled trailer to the tunes of Symphony No.9, A Good Day to Die Hard falls short of a basic rule of any film genre, effective story-telling. Now granted, in an action movie, the story is just a pilot for the action, but the plot still needs to make sense. The villains of the film don't ever disclose their plans of what they actually want to do with their weapons grade Uranium, they just steal it and the audience assumes from there whats next, lazy writing. While its always fun to watch Bruce Willis blow stuff up and be a smart ass about it, the act just feels forced this time around.
Where Live Free or Die Hard failed was its giving in to a PG-13 rating, A Good Day to Die Hard just lost its way everywhere. All the "drama" between father and son feels rushed and the film just lacks consistency. Bruce Willis deserves credit for trying but this film is just average at best. Director John Moore, best known for Behind Enemy Lines, relies too much on slow motion to make the action "cooler" but in turn makes it an overstaurated effect. All negatives aside, A Good Day to Die Hard is a fun film but it can wait for HBO...D+.
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