So we'll start off with this simple statement, "I've got an awesome wife". While many other guys had to go see movies that would normally be groan inducing (Safe Haven anyone?), I got to take my wife to see Bruce Willis hopefully kick some ass in the latest Die Hard movie. While my overall expectations were tempered with the moderate disappointment of #4, I thought a new one could be just what the franchise needed to get back on track and kick some ass again. Wow, was I ever freaking wrong.
In order to really explore just how awful and terrible this movie was we should put it in a context to properly review it. The movie studio decided to cast Bruce Willis and slap a Die Hard tag on it, so they will have to live with the movie being judged as such. I don't care if you felt like it was a solid "b" movie. Die Hard is not a "B" franchise. So what really goes in to a DH (sick of typing "Die Hard") movie?
1. John McLane is just trying to go about his day and do his thing and someone is coming along and majorly screwing up his day.
*DH1 - He just wanted to go to "come out to the coast, get together, have a few laughs" when Hans Gruber seriously messes up his day.
*DH2 - Just wanted to pick his wife up at the airport for Xmas with the in-laws when he accidentally stumbles on madness in the airport and a paramilitary group trying to free a warlord.
*DH3 - Hans' baby bro basically hijacks John from his self imposed exile of "smoking cigarettes and watching captain kangaroo" to act as a major distraction while he runs away with all the money.
*DH4 - John's just try to bring in some stupid hacker kid cause he happened to be in the neighborhood trying to reconcile with his little girl.
*DH5 - He goes to Russia because his estranged son gets imprisoned. He actually goes out of his way to become involved in this dispute. This gets worse later in the film when they have a chance to get the hell out of dodge with little to no ramifications (the Russian guy will still be in charge, which later they simply don't give a shit either way - note he was killed but the good guys could not have been aware of this).
2. The villains have an ultimate purpose/goal that makes some kind of sense, and kinda kick ass
*DH1 - Hans Gruber - this guy defined epic movie bad guys. I don't even know what else you can say about it
*DH2 - Col. Stuart - so for some reason they decided he should be naked. I have no idea why, but after that he was competent, efficient and lethal. I'm not sure what more you could possibly want. He was no Hans Gruber, but still effective.
*DH3 - Simon Gruber - Again, he had a great heist, and the revenge play was a plausible and solid distraction. Not as bad ass as big brother, but John Harbaugh knows how that goes down.
*DH4 - Thomas Gabriel - I'm not sure where I would rank him but his goal is admirable (taking down the interwebs!!!) and he's still pretty bad ass & efficient. Plus the ransom note video is nice flair.
*DH5 - Komarov - I'm not entirely sure what his goal was, I think his plan looked something like this
- 1. Have daughter go undercover for rivals henchmen and let them think she betrayed me
- 2. Have a random American break me out of prison/court because.... um America FUCK YEAH!
- 3. Have them take me to building where I hid special key
- 4. Have daughter go through with 'betrayal' to take us to where we stashed all the U-235
- 5. Once at stash, kill the people holding me captive so I can take the U-235
- 5.1. Call former partner/guy who was persecuting me to taunt him while his masseuse kills him
- 6. ???
- 7. Profit
The American involvement was not explained beyond 'we don't like that guy, cause stuff' (admittedly not too far off from general American policy).
3. McLane is an everyday wise cracking bad-ass but he also gets his ass kicked. From movies 1 - 4 you actually started to wonder if he might just bite the bullet in one of these things. He basically spends 120 minutes getting his ass kicked by everyone and everything in sight, but pulls it all out with his tenacity and tag-line (Yippee Ki-Yay motherfucker). In the latest installment he just goes around making crappy one-liners about how he is channeling Rodney Dangerfield (no respect I tells ya) and Chevy Chase (I'm supposed to be on vacation). His one YKYMF comes in the most retarded scene where he drives a truck off the back of a helicopter.
4. Characters.
*DH1 - You loved Sgt. Powell & the kid in the limo, you wanted to root for them. You secretly giggled when Ellis' big mouth got him killed. You felt bad for Takagi when he was killed. Even the bad guys were interesting with Theo & Gruber. The Johnson FBI agents and the shitbag suck-up LT even provide someone you kinda root against.
*DH2 - This one is a little weaker, but Leslie Barnes (air controller guy) and Trudeau (Fred Dalton) are easy to root for, as Marvin the janitor. You also generally don't like the Lorenzo brothers (the cops).
*DH3 - Samuel L. Jackson - before he had enough of those snakes! Oddly enough the cops in this one are actually all fairly likable, the feds tend to suck.
*DH4 - You get Warlock & Matt to root for, the FBI retards and the general bad guys to root against. Again we are slipping from our previous characters, but still care a little
*DH5 - I don't really know why I should care about anyone in this movie except for McLane. You'll kind root for his kid not to die, if only because McLane's life has kinda sucked enough. By this point both good & bad guys are blank, generic figures that don't have any personality at all. If they put any other name on these people you would not care
I think I've just about rambled enough at this point. Without these things you simply don't have a "Die Hard" movie. In the case of this thing, you didn't even get a solid 'B' action movie (something I would even give credit to GI Joe/Transformers movies which I despised). You've got CGI that looks like it came from a first term graphics design class; over the top shaky camera work which I guess is supposed to build 'tension' (or just give you a headache); a bunch of random explosions and bullets flying which I guess would have still been neat 30 years ago; and Bruce Willis looking like he walked on the set, read the script said "this is crap! I'm outta here!" and was promptly given a check with a couple extra zeros on it so said "Screw it, I can mail this one in!". If I ever get the opportunity to meet Mr. Willis, I'm pretty sure I'll have to tell him he owes me $35 bucks (Cinetopia ain't cheap!).
Last word: I'll just modify a Billy Madison quote on this one:
Principal: Mr. Moore/Wood, what you've created is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever witnessed. At no point in your rambling, incoherent film were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this theater is now dumber for having watched it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
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