You may remember my mentioning this
Last month, when I published the article about most anticipated films for 2013, I had said that I'd do my best to go and see each film on that list. Well, A Good Day to Die Hard was on that list and it just came out on friday. I went to see it just a few hours ago and decided I may as well get the review over with.
Let me first start by saying that just prior to seeing the movie, I made the idiotic decision to take a glimpse at the ratings the movie was getting by critics on the internet. I was daunted by the horrible reviews it had garnered on sites like Rotten Tomatoes which gave it a disheartening one star. After seeing the movie, I can definitely say that that's way over-the-top. I'll give you my opinion on the film.
It's not as good as Live Free or Die Hard, not by a long shot. I didn't expect it to be, don't you expect it to be. For one thing, I'm not a big fan of Jack, John McClane's son in this movie. As far as being a sidekick goes, he's not at all on par with Justin Long from Live Free, who is unfortunately, absent from this movie. I don't know why he's not in it, I would've liked to at least see him have a few lines somewhere along the line. Long's dorky awkwardness perfectly coincided with McClane's brutish atitude and watching them scrape by the bad guys was very entertaining. Here, the two are kind of boring together, the personalities don't bounce off of each other humorously, they just exist.
In fact, other than Bruce Willis, the whole cast is pretty weak. The lead villain isn't even in the same world as the past ones such as Alan Rickman and Timothy Olyphant who were fantastic in their roles. The bad guys don't interest me. I don't care about their motives, I don't care about them in general, I don't even really want to see them dead because I found that I just didn't really care.
Besides the two leads and the bad guys, there really aren't any other characters. Why not? All of the other movies had a bunch of good guys, hell even Die Hard 2 was better in that respect.
At 90 minutes, the movie felt pretty short. It doesn't feel like it's rushed or anything, it just feels like there isn't enough plot to span it out any longer, like the plot is just an excuse for some action (Speaking of which, I'm not going to give away the plot, but I will say don't expect much). It's not anywhere near as interesting as the convoluted plot from the third one, it's not unique as the hacker one from the fourth one and it's not as simple as the thieves from the first one. It's just not very good. It was kind of weird, watching this movie. It was so unlike the other ones where there's all this stuff going on and development and whatever, this movie just kind of happened all at once (which is kind of hard to understand, but if you see it, you'll know what I mean).
I'm kind of against the idea of having it take place in Russia, whereas all of the previous ones were set in America. Yeah, maybe it was time for a change of pace, but it just kind of makes it stick out from the other ones.
Despite all of that, the action itself is amazing, It starts off strong with a crazy car chase that leaves dozens of vehicles in ruin and covers a lot of land. It's a great scene and had me on the edge of my seat. From there the action is all awesome too, but you may notice, as I did, that there's something curiously missing from it...
I think I figured out what it was. Much of what Die Hard and movies like it (e.g. 007) are all about at the core is taking the character, putting them in a situation where their survival is impossible and seeing how they survive. For instance, how the hell do you take out a helicopter with a car?
That's how.
The Die Hard movies are full of these. How do you get out of a pitch black highway tunnel? How do you get off of an exploding rooftop? How do you fight a jet with a truck? How do you kill an asian ninja bitch? (The answer is an SUV to the elevator shaft) A Good Day to Die Hard was largely absent of these moments, all of the action was just action. Shootouts and whatever else. If you changed the characters, it'd probably be completely unrecognizable as a Die Hard flick. The style just isn't there.
Everything flows so perfectly in the other ones like the way the Terminator statue falls on the delete button causing an explosion that kills the bad guy in Live Free. That was set up so well, y'know? You have that moment where you realize what's about to happen and you just lose your shit everywhere. I love that. That's Die Hard.
After all that, you probably think I hated it, but I didn't. I think it was still better than Die Hard 2, but I also think it could've been much better. Bruce Willis is still good in this movie and, like I said before, the action is great. This one is back to an R rating, as it should be, leaving Live Free or Die Hard as the only one with a PG-13 rating. Not that I have some sort of hardon for the word "fuck", but it's just not Die Hard if they're not dropping F-bombs all over the place. Fortunately, there is an unrated version of Live Free that includes all the violence and language, but it would be better if it were on the standard release rather than trying to pander to a larger audience by toning it down (PG-13 movies do better commercially than R). Besides, to my knowledge, it's not available on Blu-Ray and movies like Die Hard are much better when in high-definition.
As far as that one-star rating goes, I think the reviewer was in the wrong mindset. You can't go into a Die Hard movie expecting a riveting, multifaceted plot and in-depth characters; you go into a Die Hard movie to laugh at the jokes, cheer at the one-liners and gape at the action. People these days seem to be incapable of changing their mindsets and on a related note, suspending their disbelief. That's kind of depressing to me because when you limit yourself like that and don't allow open-mindedness, you miss out on a lot of great movies. I know people who I can't get to watch Studio Ghibli movies because they immediately dismiss it as "too weird" and drop it, not knowing they're missing out on a compelling story. The same goes for anime, people won't watch high-brow shows like Death Note or Fullmetal Alchemist just because it's anime. They instantly assume it's all
Which is great, don't get me wrong.
Not knowing it's more intelligent and engaging than 90% of the shit on American TV.
But anyway the movie was pretty decent, check it out if you have nothing better to do but it's not worth canceling your wedding over.
It's not as good as Live Free or Die Hard, not by a long shot. I didn't expect it to be, don't you expect it to be. For one thing, I'm not a big fan of Jack, John McClane's son in this movie. As far as being a sidekick goes, he's not at all on par with Justin Long from Live Free, who is unfortunately, absent from this movie. I don't know why he's not in it, I would've liked to at least see him have a few lines somewhere along the line. Long's dorky awkwardness perfectly coincided with McClane's brutish atitude and watching them scrape by the bad guys was very entertaining. Here, the two are kind of boring together, the personalities don't bounce off of each other humorously, they just exist.
In fact, other than Bruce Willis, the whole cast is pretty weak. The lead villain isn't even in the same world as the past ones such as Alan Rickman and Timothy Olyphant who were fantastic in their roles. The bad guys don't interest me. I don't care about their motives, I don't care about them in general, I don't even really want to see them dead because I found that I just didn't really care.
Besides the two leads and the bad guys, there really aren't any other characters. Why not? All of the other movies had a bunch of good guys, hell even Die Hard 2 was better in that respect.
At 90 minutes, the movie felt pretty short. It doesn't feel like it's rushed or anything, it just feels like there isn't enough plot to span it out any longer, like the plot is just an excuse for some action (Speaking of which, I'm not going to give away the plot, but I will say don't expect much). It's not anywhere near as interesting as the convoluted plot from the third one, it's not unique as the hacker one from the fourth one and it's not as simple as the thieves from the first one. It's just not very good. It was kind of weird, watching this movie. It was so unlike the other ones where there's all this stuff going on and development and whatever, this movie just kind of happened all at once (which is kind of hard to understand, but if you see it, you'll know what I mean).
I'm kind of against the idea of having it take place in Russia, whereas all of the previous ones were set in America. Yeah, maybe it was time for a change of pace, but it just kind of makes it stick out from the other ones.
Despite all of that, the action itself is amazing, It starts off strong with a crazy car chase that leaves dozens of vehicles in ruin and covers a lot of land. It's a great scene and had me on the edge of my seat. From there the action is all awesome too, but you may notice, as I did, that there's something curiously missing from it...
I think I figured out what it was. Much of what Die Hard and movies like it (e.g. 007) are all about at the core is taking the character, putting them in a situation where their survival is impossible and seeing how they survive. For instance, how the hell do you take out a helicopter with a car?
That's how.
The Die Hard movies are full of these. How do you get out of a pitch black highway tunnel? How do you get off of an exploding rooftop? How do you fight a jet with a truck? How do you kill an asian ninja bitch? (The answer is an SUV to the elevator shaft) A Good Day to Die Hard was largely absent of these moments, all of the action was just action. Shootouts and whatever else. If you changed the characters, it'd probably be completely unrecognizable as a Die Hard flick. The style just isn't there.
Everything flows so perfectly in the other ones like the way the Terminator statue falls on the delete button causing an explosion that kills the bad guy in Live Free. That was set up so well, y'know? You have that moment where you realize what's about to happen and you just lose your shit everywhere. I love that. That's Die Hard.
After all that, you probably think I hated it, but I didn't. I think it was still better than Die Hard 2, but I also think it could've been much better. Bruce Willis is still good in this movie and, like I said before, the action is great. This one is back to an R rating, as it should be, leaving Live Free or Die Hard as the only one with a PG-13 rating. Not that I have some sort of hardon for the word "fuck", but it's just not Die Hard if they're not dropping F-bombs all over the place. Fortunately, there is an unrated version of Live Free that includes all the violence and language, but it would be better if it were on the standard release rather than trying to pander to a larger audience by toning it down (PG-13 movies do better commercially than R). Besides, to my knowledge, it's not available on Blu-Ray and movies like Die Hard are much better when in high-definition.
As far as that one-star rating goes, I think the reviewer was in the wrong mindset. You can't go into a Die Hard movie expecting a riveting, multifaceted plot and in-depth characters; you go into a Die Hard movie to laugh at the jokes, cheer at the one-liners and gape at the action. People these days seem to be incapable of changing their mindsets and on a related note, suspending their disbelief. That's kind of depressing to me because when you limit yourself like that and don't allow open-mindedness, you miss out on a lot of great movies. I know people who I can't get to watch Studio Ghibli movies because they immediately dismiss it as "too weird" and drop it, not knowing they're missing out on a compelling story. The same goes for anime, people won't watch high-brow shows like Death Note or Fullmetal Alchemist just because it's anime. They instantly assume it's all
Which is great, don't get me wrong.
Not knowing it's more intelligent and engaging than 90% of the shit on American TV.
But anyway the movie was pretty decent, check it out if you have nothing better to do but it's not worth canceling your wedding over.
"Die Hard", a lot of problems solved thru vehicle crashes.
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