I was very hesitant to watch Live Free or Die Hard, the fourth movie in the franchise released in 2007, for the first time a few years back. Considering the huge time gap between 3 and 4, I was concerned it wasn't going to capture the same spirit that made the first three movies fun action fests. So color me surprised when it turned out to be a rock solid entry, and I'll even say Die Hard 4 is BETTER than 2 and 3. So with that in mind, I was so willing to see A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth film, despite all the negative reaction it got.
The first 30-some minutes put me in a state of worry and semi-panic, as the movie was doing a bunch of things I wasn't thrilled to see in a Die Hard film: John McClane's bizarre lack of screen presence and lines, a weird, stylized opening credits, and shaky cam! Sooooooo much shaky cam! The destructive chase scene that engulfs the opening act could have been so much better if the cam wasn't shaking every damn chance it got. To add insult to injury, the camera sometimes zooms in and out, apparently to give a sense of tension or whatever. It didn't work. It just added to the overall embarrassment to how the chase scene was handled, camera-wise.
But I still had hope, hope that the rest of the movie would still be a fun fest like Die Hard 4. Instead, I was welcomed to an ABSURD amount of padding whenever possible, dragging a surprisingly short Die Hard movie (98 minutes) out as long as possible. It's almost like, when it was time to make Die Hard 5, they only thought about the chase scene at the beginning, and started filming based on that. Once they finished those scenes, the crew was probably like, "Oh, wait... we gotta make 68 more minutes?" And from there, I saw nothing but pointless scene after pointless scene with next to zero tension, drama, or action. There's an "action" sequence during the mid-point, but it really involves both McClanes (oh yeah, his son's in this) hiding behind a bar, getting captured, followed by a long, boring torture scene, and then running from a helicopter for two seconds. They don't even TRY to fight it.
The most horrible thing about this movie is that John McClane doesn't even feel like the main character. For the first 60-some minutes of the film, John McClane is normally just standing in the background, usually asking something to the equivalent of, "What's going on? Huh? Who's this? Huhhh??", which is then followed by some person immediately telling him to shut his mouth. Sure, McClane has always played the unwanted underdog by stupid police chiefs or other officials in previous films, but they take it to the extreme here. And when McClane actually does something productive, the way it's presented feels like he's on auto pilot. When a Swat-esque team comes barging in a room, McClane doesn't dive for cover and spout a bunch of wise-ass comments, he stands completely still, picks up a rapid-fire weapon, and kills everyone while screaming, "I'm on vacation!!". Ugh. It truly feels like Die Hard 5 GUEST STARRING Bruce Willis.
Die Hard 5 also tries too hard to be more of a thriller than a straight action movie. Yeah, other Die Hards had a lair of mystery to the bad guy's motives, but Die Hard 5 wants you to keep guessing. Except this hurts the movie because you don't have a damn clue who the main baddy is, so you don't know who to root to be killed off. There's this old guy who doesn't have enough screen time.... but then there's this other guy!... who doesn't have much screen time. But wait! There's this woman! Except she doesn't have much screen time and her inner villainy isn't that great. But, but then! And that's EXACTLY what's wrong with this structure. By the time we know who the main bad guy is, I couldn't help but think, "I don't care... just end the movie in a respectable way."
The climax of A Good Day to Die Hard is filled with even more padding, with McClanes sneaking around and clocking guards behind there backs, followed by half-assed gunfights against people we don't care about because the movie doesn't allow these people to flesh out to a degree for us to care about. John McClane shouts "I'm on vacation!" one more time, the main bad guy falls off a building in slow motion, supposedly to mimic the iconic moment from the first film, and a helicopter crashes in a nice special effects sequence. Both McClanes survive, hugs and kisses for all those involved, I guess, and the credits roll with a Rolling Stones song...
After Die Hard 4, I thought it was impossible to make a BAD Die Hard movie, but I guess Die Hard 5 proved me wrong with its endless amounts of shallowness. If Die Hard 6 is really going to be Bruce Willis' final film in the series, then whoever writes and directs that movie will have to blow me the hell away after this amazing waste of time. In fact, I refuse A Good Day to Die Hard as an official sequel, and have instead replaced it with 2010's Red as Die Hard 5. If you didn't like THAT movie, then that's a good indicator of how dreadful A Good Day to Die Hard is.
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