A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)

Twentieth Century Fox

Remember those English class assignments from grade school where you learned about analogies, like saying "____ is to pizza" as "astro turf is to football"? Well this new Die Hard movie can be summed up the same way by saying, "A Good Day To Die Hard is to Die Hard" as "Crystal Skull is to Raiders of the Lost Ark." Seriously, it was *that* bad. Actually, I could borrow a phrase from a friend and say it's "so bad, dude."

First off, my big complaint is that I am getting really sick of Arnold Schwarzennegger, Sylvester Stallone, and now Bruce Willis always being used for the same comic relief role in action movies. I know they are older than they were in the 80's, obviously so, but they seem to bludgeon you over the head with it for every joke. It's like they are just playing Danny Glover's role in Lethal Weapon, "I'm too old for this shit." If this keeps up, I'll just pass on their movies from now on.

Second, the whole movie was just an endless special effect bonanza and it wasn't even a good one. I know the recent Mission: Impossible and the A*Team movie from several years ago were in the same vein, with over-the-top computerized stunts, but at least those did it all with a wink to the audience and it was done for laughs. This movie seemed too serious and doesn't jive with previous Die Hards. It feels like FOX took the script for an espionage knock-off of Mission: Impossible and just added the character of John McClane to guarantee it made a couple bucks. Its as if they knew John McClane famously dove off a skyscraper with explosions behind him in the first movie and just repeated it for this movie's big finale.

I knew it was a bad sign when this movie was released so early in the year because January and February are infamous for being a movie dumping ground; movies go to these months to die. Unless its a movie with a black man in drag, then it's almost like printing money. As much as I would like another Die Hard movie to erase the bad taste in my mouth from this one, I don't want it since it would likely be more of the same due to this new school mentality of style over substance. So please Hollywood, can we just say "Yippe Yi Ki Yay Mr. McClane" and put this series to rest?