There was a recent news story about the development of a sixth Die Hard movie that would take John McClane to Japan and the home office of Nakatomi to mark the 30th anniversary of the events depicted in the first movie. Oh Lord, how I wish that they had made that movie! Instead, we get some hackneyed story about how McClane must journey to Russia to reconnect with his CIA agent son, and – Surprise! – they hate each other.
So what we get is a tired retread of the previous Die Hard films with Jai Courtney’s Jack McClane in the sidekick role, and fittingly, the whole affair was overseen by John Moore, the director of tired retreads of Flight of the Phoenix and The Omen. Between the incomprehensible motivations, unimpressive villains, and Willis’ portrayal of McClane as a grumpy old man Terminator, it’s not hard to see A Good Day to Die Hard as a soulless and pedantic corporate product made solely to capitalize on the “Die Hard” brand name. The franchise that launched a thousand imitators can’t even be bothered to copy the things that made it great in the first place, if it could even remember what those qualities were any more.
Maybe we’re all getting too old for this.
