Film Review: ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ Makes For Bad Movie Night

CHICAGO – The franchise has been in steady decline since the original “Die Hard,” quite simply one of the best action films of all time, but that still doesn’t prepare one for the truly horrendous “A Good to Day to Die Hard,” a complete waste of time on every level. Loud, obnoxious, boring, cartoonish, morally reprehensible, and just plain stupid, “A Good Day to Die Hard” is just bad, bad, bad. The movie bears so little resemblance to the first film in the franchise that they literally share nothing in common other than an actor and a character name (and this is clearly another script that was originally conceived as a non-franchise film and then barely forced into the series like a square peg into a round hole). If someone at Fox is wise, they’ll just rename this something generic before its DVD release and admit that this isn’t really a “Die Hard” movie. Just call it “A Good Day.” Or “Day to Die.” Or “Hard to Watch.”

Rating: 0.5/5.0

With almost no set-up (other than to have our hero at a shooting range to prove he’s still got the goods), John McClane (Bruce Willis, looking bored as ever) jets off to Moscow to find his son Jack (Jai Courtney, looking like Sam Worthington’s less-interesting younger brother), who was recently arrested for shooting a man in a crowded Russian nightclub. Just as Jack is about to testify against a notorious Russian criminal named Komarov (Sebastian Koch), a trio of car bombs are set off outside the courthouse, a truck filled with soldiers deploys, and the true action of the piece begins in earnest with a car chase that would make Michael Bay roll his eyes. It turns out that dear Jack wasn’t actually a petty criminal in Moscow but an undercover CIA agent and dear old dad is there just in time to mess up a major international operation. Hey, he’s John McClane. That’s what he does.

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “A Good Day to Die Hard” in our reviews section.

Wait, no it’s not. When did the everyman hero who was forced into action against terrorists in the original film turn into someone who would give any Marvel character a run for their money physically? In “A Good Day to Die Hard,” McClane is not just able to outrun a helicopter shooting rockets at him, perfectly maneuver his vehicle atop crowded Russian streets (while committing roughly 100 counts of vehicular manslaughter), and fall from stories high without breaking a bone, but he does so with a wink and a smile. “A Good Day to Die Hard” doesn’t just require suspension of disbelief, you need to not know what “suspension” or “disbelief” means to enjoy it. It would help if you didn’t know what “of” means too.

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “A Good Day to Die Hard” review.

A Good Day to Die Hard
Photo credit: Fox