How could I be this excited about a new Die Hard movie when I didn’t actually bother to see the last one? I’m not sure. But this actually motivates me to want to see Live Free or Die Hard if I can catch it on Netflix or something. So it’s been about eight years since my last McClane infusion; maybe I just needed more.
Anyway, this move was pretty much everything you could expect from a Die Hard movie. Bruce Willis kills a lot of badguys, bleeds all over, says snappy, cynical shit, and is generally a badass. Oh yeah, and a badguy gets thrown off a building because that’s basically a requirement. And the plot is definitely more over the top and ridiculous than the third movie, so there’s that. Russians! Cold War jokes! WMDs and nukes!
The angle I was actually kind of worried about when I saw the trailer was the father/son thing. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull pretty much killed that entire trope for me. I wish I could blame it entirely on Shia LaBeouf, but it was probably just an issue of script and too much ridiculous CGI and he was just kind of the cherry on that turd sundae.
Jai Courtney was just fine as McClane’s son. They have a good dynamic, there’s sufficient character development for an action movie, and ultimately I’m just a sucker for father/son bonding that involves assault weapons I guess. I kept looking at Jai Courtney the entire time and trying to figure out where the hell I’d seen him before. A trip to IMDB said – nowhere, actually. I haven’t seen thing one that he’s been in, other than this movie. I think part of my brain was trying to connect him with Liam Hemsworth because they, they’re both white action star kind of guys and have pretty similar jawlines particularly when fuzzed with manly stubble.
If you want to see Bruce Willis and a miscellaneous young action hero blow up stuff and shoot things, it’s a fun movie. Much snappy dialog is exchanged and muscular men break a lot of windows with their bodies.
2 replies on “A Good Day to Die Hard”
I thought it was a fun move but VERY short. I’m guessing they are setting up Jai to take over the franchise. Based on this one, I’d be okay with that.
I’d be okay with that. They built him to have a bad enough attitude that he definitely has a John McClane-esque chip on his shoulder. The only thing I’m not sure about from that angle is they made him a government spook instead of the world’s unluckiest police officer, which really changes the entire dynamic. Means it might go my spy-fi than the gritty and ridiculous thing Die Hard has always had going.