Darkmatters Review: A Good Day To Die Hard

A Good Day To Die Hard (12a)

Dir. John Moore

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

“The 007 of Plainfield, New Jersey.”

I was proud to be there when terrorists took over Naktaomi Plaza in ’88, I was back again when Washington Dulles International got hit in ’90 and for the Federal Reserve heist in ’95. I even celebrated the Fourth of July cyber assault in 2007 – all of them having been enjoyed and John McClane elevated in my mind to Godlike status for his insane against the odds one man saving the day antics…

Now Bruce Willis resurrects his most famous hero again in order to take down a serious threat by some very nasty and powerful Russian politically motivated criminals.  Embroiled in the mix is McClane’s estranged son Jack or John McClane Junior (Jai ‘Jack Reacher’ Courtney) who is banged up in Moscow awaiting trial. What’s a renegade cop dad to do but fly straight over to Russia and try to save his son’s bacon?

"Father / son 'Bonding' time"

But things aren’t what they seem and before you can say ‘erm I think your son might not actually be a criminal but rather be a CIA agent deep undercover’, young Jack McClane is busy breaking a fellow prisoner named Komarov (Sebastian Kock) out of jail. Komarov has a file which can ruin heavyweight politician Chagarin (Sergey Kolesnikov) – and so is obviously being chased by a small army of baddies who think nothing of mounting a full scale gun and bomb assault on the courthouse where the Komarov’s trial is taking place.

The plot is the least ‘Die Hard’ to date – it’s basically less ‘one man against the odds’ and more ‘two men get caught up in a nuclear weapon conspiracy’ – at least director Moore has the decency to include one excellent car chase, some impressive (if unhappily toned down thanks to the 12a rating) firefights and several other action scenes.

"Excuse me Miss Yuliya Snigir - this is a 12a!"

So the real question is: “is it A Good Day To Die Hard?” And the answer is ‘yes’ as long as you compare this to rivals such as the neutered Taken 2 and Bourne Legacy, or the creaky Stallone effort Bullet to the Head or even Arnie’s The Last Stand. A Good Day To Die Hard can’t compete with Skyfall or The Raid as a ‘triple A’ action blast and it is definitely the weakest Die Hard of the series but it packed enough thrills to have won over my eldest son who took his girlfriend to it and both came away having enjoyed the lightweight action mayhem.

Out of a potential 5 you have to go with a Darkmatters:

ööö1/2 - Yippe-Ki-Yay again 

3.5 – even the twitching corpse of the Die Hard franchise is worth watching!

Awesomeness öööö – a couple of great scenes

Laughs öö – some funnies but nothing memorable

Horror ö – too tame

Babes ööö – Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Yuliya Snigir are yum

Spiritual Enlightenment öö - fight for what's right!

That’s probably enough Yippee-Ki-Yaying now though…

"Mary Elizabeth Winstead is back as Lucy McClane"