Die hard franchise was never supposed to be a practical film series, Its shear fantasy of physical fury on a scale that cannot be easily imagined. Well the new episode in the saga, A Good Day to Die hard doesn’t really disappoint its audience in that sense. You can easily sideline it by calling the movie as a series of blasts and gunshots. But considering the nature of the franchise I would call it as a nice shot.
The plot here now has McClane’s son who is on a secret CIA mission in Russia. As part of the plan he gets himself busted and this prompts McLain go to Moscow to bring out his boy in his own style. Unaware of the real plan behind the arrest of his son Jack McClane, John causes big trouble to his son’s mission by his fatherly interference. The ride of dad and the son to escape from the mess along with the twists and surprises filled with blasts and gunshots are the basic contents of this die hard episode.
The usage of Chernobyl as a key element may irritate many minds as it is something that really exists. But I was able to take my sensibility to the story they planted. The one thing I found a bit hard to sync in is the amount of blasts they created in the climax sequences as the location is a highly sensitive one. With some deadly choreography of stunts with the typical over the top style, director manages to distract the audience from these questions. The opening chase sequence had almost all what you were looking forward to see in a diehard extravaganza and the technical aspects showed much improvement in comparison with the previous one.
On screen, Bruce Willis as John McClane looks scratchy but he is still cool. His dialogs have been shortened with some coolness. Jai Courtney as Jack McClane doesn’t have much attitude which he should have got from the gene. Sebastian Koch was good as the cunning political prisoner Yuri Komarov. Yuliya Snigir gave a satisfactory performance as the dual shaded Irina.
In the making, direction is quite satisfactory. The emotional recreation of the bonding between dad and son was done smoothly keeping the signature cool style of the movie. In the writing part, they haven’t gone for something really special to give a fresh feel to the story. But still the mixing of some reality to some high octane fiction was done smoothly. The VFX part showed some serious improvement when compared to 4.0. Some of the moves in the climax sequence remind us of Moore’s Max Payne. Cinematography showed some hiccups and the chopping of sequences could have been made better.
Overall, A Good Day to Die Hard is a good one time watch for its bloody good blasts and coolness. May not be as grant as you expected, but still it’s a cool one. I am giving 3/5 for the daddy and his boy. Let’s hope McClane will do something beyond his family next time.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
