I can’t boo hard enough at this waste of time. The fifth installment in the Die Hard franchise has lowered the bar so far that the stale breath of Bruce Willis can’t even escape the clearance. When it was announced I didn’t really have high expectations, my expectations were so low they were floating above the planet core, but this is just awful shoddy work. The script is bad, the acting is worse and the villains make so many stupid ass decisions that this film is right down on my bottom list with the likes of Salt. If you’ve read my work, you know how mad I was about that movie.
Who wrote this? This garbage pile of donkey shit had the worst writing ever. At the same time that John McClane is trying to find his son and make up with him for years of unseen neglect, he is also completely wittingly pulled into a half assed terrorist plot by the most poorly written Russian terrorists I have encountered since, you guessed it, Salt. So you get the whole trying to make up during the scenes where they are resting between these really stupid action scenes that throw plausibility out the window. It completely puts the movie off kilter, trying to blend a father/son bonding with an action film. It is done so poorly, so poorly.
I’m holding back so much rage writing about this. So here is the stupid plot filled with stupid SPOILERS. The movie begins with a good father and daughter relationship repaired after the events of the fourth movie, so it’s time to fly to Russia to rescue the father/son relationship. One weird, Sinatra filled, Cab ride later, we arrive at the courthouse where his son is about to be executed arraigned likely killed by terrorists that are trying to get to a Russian scientist so he can lead them to “The file”. Jack, John’s son, is also trying to get his hands on the file so the American government can stop an evil Russian politician from gaining power through blackmail. John McClane serves to fuck everything up for his son, but provides his services as a brutal, one-liner spewing, killing machine throughout the entire film. Eventually ending up in Chernobyl, Ukraine; John and Jack find that the man they are protecting is in reality the evil mastermind behind the whole operation. They kick everything’s ass. End game.
Get use to seeing this.
I don’t want to get started on this flick, but that’s what this is about. The movie was a mess. The bad guy’s defection was the only surprising moment of the film. It seems that this one tried to follow a lot of what James Bond has been trying to do as of late; that is to introduce weird quirky villains. This one has a stupid laughs and eats carrots when he’s taunting you. What the hell was that? There is practically no exposition in this film. The end of the action only serves as a loading screen to the next action scene. In fact, I wouldn’t have been so disappointed in this if it was a Die Hard video game. No! You have to sit through it and watch it for its short and disappointing run time. You don’t get to choose, this movie sucks any way you look at it.
The ending of the film was by far the worst ending to a film ever written, even worse than Salt! So after John McClane drags a helicopter down by driving a truck out of the back end. When the helicopter regains its momentum, it is out of ammo… and out of pure vengeance, the pilot and daughter of the Russian leader tries to ram the helicopter into the building to kill the John’s McClane. But instead of aiming right the hell at them, she aims to the left, enough to literally watch them jumping out the window completely avoiding the death she attempted to rain on them. She dies… the stupidest and needless movie death ever. Her poor co-pilot dies too. Poor guy. Then the McClanes get home… and silently walk into the sunset, freeze frame on them smiling and scene. Fuck you Die Hard 5.
Oh, almost forgot. They try to carbon copy the fall out of the window that Hans Gruber does in the first film. Which fails miserably.
Much better.
This film also includes the death of John McClane, not literally mind you. He dies because his character has no character. He is very little like the original. It is quite obvious that the writer (who wrote X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The A-Team, so you know he was ready to tackle a beloved franchise like Die Hard) had absolutely no idea what to do with this legend of a character. So he did nothing. He said lines, and shot guns and that’s all John McClane does right? Right? Wrong you asshole! Wrong! John McClane has a load of character. This tired excuse of an action hero was nothing like what we saw in Die Hard 4, which wasn’t that long ago mind you. He was great in that because he was given things to do. Things go boom in this film and it’s John’s doing. That’s all you get folks. No character, whatsoever.
Final Word: Forget this. Don’t ever see it. It’s not worth the aggravation. It’s not worth the DVD. I want my money back and my mind wiped.
Final Grade: F
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