The "Die Hard" series continues. It is safe to say, while all of the "Die Hard" movies have been good, none of them held a candle to the original. The series has lasted five films on the strength of what was probably the best or one of the best action movies of all time. "A Good Day to Die Hard" won’t be changing that. Not even close. "Die Hard" had too many elements that have been forgotten in its following films. The most important being that John McClane didn’t defeat the large number of terrorists by acting like Rambo. He did it by using his brain. He outsmarted them. He got into their heads and made them make mistakes. He did dangerous things, but they were all feasible, or at least somewhat humanly possible.
"A Good Day to Die Hard" brings back a little bit of that human element as McClane learns that his son, Jack (Jai Courtney) is in some sort of trouble in Russia. They are estranged, but John is determined to stand beside him in his time of need or try to patch things up. His son isn’t so happy to see him and once they are together, John is hurdled into his son’s life and situation like you would expect, with guns blazing and cars crashing.
At the end of "Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard", John McClane faces off against a F-35 that basically annihilates a highway intersection and then somehow he ends up on the wing of the plane, balancing, surviving like Spiderman and in that moment, the series died to me. The series had lowered itself to the worst common denominator of action films in the 21st century. Thankfully, "A Good Day to Die Hard" redeemed itself on that level as well. Sure, there were some crazy things, even a pretty unrealistic scene where McClane drives over cars in a traffic jam, but it wasn’t horrible.
The action scenes are really good in this movie. Yet, after watching something like "Skyfall" from earlier this year, "Die Hard" sort looks dated and like yesterday’s action movie. The story is pretty simple; of course so were the stories in all the other movies. You don’t want to confuse the audience when all they want is carnage. Unfortunately though, in my humble opinion, carnage is overrated if you don’t feel invested.
"A Good Day to Die Hard" did a lot of things right or at least turned the corner in the right direction, but it still is just an average action movie in today’s new standard. There will always be a box office for action movies and I don’t blame people for going to see this. Although, the real test of a great action movie is whether or not it will be talked and reviewed about 5 or 10 years from now, like "Die Hard", "Lethal Weapon 1 & 2", "Alien", "Skyfall", "True Lies", "48 Hours" or "Terminator 1&2". It won’t. There just wasn’t enough to make your heart race and feel invested as if your own life depended upon McClane succeeding like in "Die Hard". It certainly wasn’t boring though.
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