SMALLS PONDERS IF IT IS EVER A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD

Oh, so much to say....where to start, where to start?

Ok, first off: why would anyone make a film if they clearly don't give two shits about what they are making? I mean, I guess maybe if the money is good enough....but still??? Why do that with such a beloved franchise as Die Hard and why with such a respected American hero as John Mcclane? Come on guys, this guy deserves better than this and so does his franchise....why can't we just let the poor old bastard die in peace?

Well, in case it isn't already obvious....I didn't particularly care for A Good Day To Day Hard. Now, I didn't hate this film...it by no means made me angry......it made me more frustrated than anything else. It's a film that tries to make "I'm on vacation" a catch-phrase when it doesn't even make sense within the confines of the film....but fuck that noise, AGDTDH continually forces this line down our throats whether we like it or not. John McClane is not on vacation, he flew to Russia with a specific purpose: to rescue his son from a bad situation. But apparently Mcclane is beginning to show the first stages of Alzheimers as he says this line throughout the film with a good amount of glee, apparently forgetting that he chose to fly over here and that he had a damn good reason to.

There isn't much plot here, or character development (or script development come to think of it, many of the places the script chooses to go will have most slapping their faces repeatedly). In AGDTDH, John Mcclane flies to Russia when he catches wind that his son Jack may have gotten himself in a pretty bad situation. Little does John  know, but Jack is there on a mission of his own. You see, he's working as a CIA operative, and he has been sent to Russia to protect a Russian ex-terrorist who has possession of a file that could help lock the REAL baddies up for good. Naturally, John  only manages to fuck the whole situation up, and soon teams up with his son to save the day (and then some).

That's the plot....pretty flimsy dontcha think? This is a film that clearly only cares about showing us pretty explosions and high-octane action and to it's credit (which I give reluctantly) it does try to show us good scenes of these. Unfortunately, what the people working on this film forgot was that action, explosions, gunplay and perceived danger to our heroes only works if we are invested in the story, our characters, and if we believe them to be in real peril. That's part of the problem of this film, not once do we ever believe that John  and Jack to be in any real danger. John's car flips over a good 6 times, he dangles from a helicopter which is spinning out of control only to be flung through a window and into a room, he survives many fiery explosions, falls through several wooden construction structures, falls several stories down a plastic chute, and falls through a glass roof and then continues to fall several stories before landing on the ground without his legs turning into jelly upon impact. BULLSHIT!!!! The most damage John and Jack ever receive is a few bloody bruises....you guys need a band-aid? Seriously though, John Mcclane has become a super-hero here...a man who literally can not die and who has lost all sense of fear as at one point he runs towards a helicopter that is shooting full blast straight at him....this guy KNOWS that he can not die.

Speaking of John, the John Mcclane we grew to love in the first film is nowhere to be found here. True there are moments where we get brief glimmers of the old John Mcclane via some cool one-liners....but these never last for long. In AGDTDH, Willis is clearly tired of playing this role, and while he does attempt to do some good here, the film gives him zip to work with. Mcclane is pretty much an asshole, here is a man who is surprised and angry when he jumps into the middle of the road in an attempt to steal a car and is almost immediately hit by an oncoming vehicle. MORON.

Jack is no better. Here he is a bitter, angry young man with daddy issues that spends a good portion of the run time yelling at his dad and whining. for God's sake man, you're CIA and not to mention you're in a pretty serious situation......bad guys are trying to kill you. Shelve the drama, grow a fucking pair, suck it up, and save it for another time when your distraction with your daddy issues won't get you killed.

The film does half-heartedly try to throw us some father/son bonding moments and the like....but don't let this fool you, AGDTDH is in reality a heartless, brutal film that enjoys showing us complete carnage, people getting squashed by cars, bad guys getting thrown into helicopter blades, vehicles exploding, and other such nonsense.

At least this will be the last Die Hard film. How do I know this? Well, the last 45 + minutes of the film take place in Chernobyl. John and Jack decide to travel there WITH NO RADIATION PROTECTION AT ALL. The film never brings up the danger of entering a heavily radiated area with no protection what-so-ever, and neither John nor Jack seems particularly concerned.....who knows, maybe they've come to peace with the fact that they are now on what is essentially a suicide mission. I mean, everyone else in that area is wearing radiation protection (at first), and neither John nor Jack stop to think: Hey, you know...maybe this isn't such a wise idea? Rest assured dear audience, while the film pretends to end on a happy note the way it REALLY ends (you know, the part we don't get to see after the film is over) is John and Jack slowly dying of radiation poisoning ...hey, at least they get the ultimate father-son bonding experience of all time: getting to share their slow, painful deaths together. Maybe that is a happy ending after all?

 AGDTDH is a largely uninspired, weak attempt to cash in on the video-game movie fad. The people who were writing the script didn't give a fuck about what they were working on, the actors are clearly just in it for the paycheck, the only ones who seemed to care were the VFX guys who are clearly trying to give us some good quality action scenes even though these fall flat because we are not invested in the story or the characters. AGDTDH is a fundamentally flawed film, at least Live Free or Die Hard actually had a script, a plot, character development and some chemistry between its leads (never thought I would find myself saying anything good about that film, a sad day indeed). AGDTDH will only satisfy the most easily-pleased of audience members. Myself, I'll take any Call of Duty game over this crap any day. Try harder next time Fox, and if you just don't give a fuck any more then maybe you should just leave Die Hard alone from now on.

So, is it ever a good day to die hard? No.....it's not. If this is the future of the Die Hard franchise I want no part of it. Good day, sir.

1 OUT OF 5 STARS