Die Hard is my favorite action movie. It's also my favorite Christmas movie. It's not necessarily deep or anything, but it's just done so expertly well. But what makes a Die Hard movie a
Die Hard movie? You might have all the elements down in your little list you keep in your brain for whenever this discussion starts up, but in truth it's more complicated. For instance, no one has ever gone out of their way to write a Die Hard movie before. Every Die Hard originated as either a sequel to a franchise (
Die Hard was originally
Commando 2 and
Die Hard with a Vengeance was originally
Lethal Weapon 4) or just an adaption of some writing (
Die Harder was based on a book and
Live Free or Die Hard was based on an article), so the entire franchise has just been good scripts at the wrong place at the wrong time.
A Good Day to Die Hard will be the first in the franchise to be written as a Die Hard movie, and the problems just continue from there.
Average Joe John
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| This scene happens twice! TWICE!!! How lazy can you get?! |
John McClane is just an average guy who is in the wrong place at the
wrong time, but of course since Homer Simpson would never seriously
overcome a group of highly trained thieves and murderers this average
John is also a cop. A simple minded cop but a cop nevertheless. This
obviously makes John McClane a highly relatable character and is one of
the reasons the Die Hard series has such an amazing charm to it. Seeing a
guy stuck in a scenario that requires everything he has got to overcome
it. Sadly, some idiot thought that with each consecutive Die Hard movie
the stakes need to be raised.
Die Hard with a Vengeance dealt with
this very well by giving John a support cast to explain how he was able
to save New York F*cking City.
Live Free or Die Hard didn't do this as
well but it was passable with the Mac guy solving the techno babble side
of things.
A Good Day to Die Hard doesn't give John any substantial
support and as such it portrays John as a superhero who can survive
going to hell and back with ease, but now that he has
saved...something...what else is he supposed to do? Save the world?
Michael Bay already made
Armageddon.
Euro-Terrorist Turned Super-Thief
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Yippee Ki-Yay Bow Chica Wow Wow |
Now I just want to say the Euro part isn't set in stone. For some reason
the movie just comes out better when you have a certain German family
member as a villain. The way the story goes is that terrorists highjack
something and demand some bullsh*t or else they'll f*ck sh*t up. I
don't know how or why someone has intercourse with a piece of excrement
let alone upwards but these terrorists will do it! They swear! But then
as the third act starts it's revealed that *gasp* all this terrorism is
just a distraction while they steal all our moneyz. I think the second
one was a tad different but I literally can't remember anything from
that movie so let's say YEAH!!!
Live Free or Die Hard decided it was
going to put the entire country's money at stake and how the f*ck are
you supposed to top that?! Well
A Good Day to Die Hard doesn't;
apparently, these terrorists who aren't confronted by a single Russian
officer want to steal uranium. What for? Why? To sell them? To make
weapons? How? What? We have no f*cking clue. Plus the fact that all this uranium is coming from
Chernobyl just makes me think of
Chernobyl Diaries and how much I loathe
it's very existence.
Reconnect with Family
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| Oh look! They're standing similarly and holding their guns similarly too! They must be related! |
You might think this one is pretty obvious, but there is more to this than meets the eye. In
Die Hard, John has to try to save his wife from the Euro-Terrorist Turned Super-Thief and in doing so he cuts his feet and gets hurt ALL THE TIME since he's an Average
Joe John, but this is all happening in LA and John works in NY. What the f*ck is he doing there?! Well he's there in hopes of reconnecting with his wife. That's his primary motivation before and after the terrorists show up. John McClane is basically a knight trying to save the princess from the evil wizard in the dark castle. Except unlike Mario and Zelda the princess is actually his wife! John goes through hell to save the woman he loves and get back together with her. We see this want to reconnect in every Die Hard movie. Even the third briefly talked about how John needs to communicate with his wife.
Live Free or Die Hard tried pulling this off at the end randomly, but
A Good Die to Die Hard fails at this on all fronts. John goes to Russia to see his son, whom he believes to be a delinquent, and reconnect, yet throughout the whole endeavor he keeps repeating how he is on vacation. No, no you're not, John. You're there to see your f*cking son. It's the f*cking heart of the movie and you ruined it by being forced and retarded. We literally get a scene where a man is bleeding to death after an assassination attempt and he and John just stand in the middle of the street and talk about fatherhood. WHAT THE F*CK IS THIS BULLSH*T?!?!
Conclusion
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| What happened to you, man? You used to be cool. |
F*ck you,
A Good Day to Die Hard. F*ck you indeed.
