A Good Day to Die Hard

The other movie I’ve seen lately is the newest Die Hard. You may recall (or at the least, I do) that I really liked the last one. I am sad to say that I liked this one quite a lot less. But I have a good reason. I mean, I have easy reasons too. It’s all about the chases and the explosions and feels more soulless than most Die Hard movies have, and that would be the easy way out. But there are troubling plot and character failures that make me wonder if it’s possible to make another good sequel in this series.

So, each movie has escalated John McClane’s talent for surviving the wrong place at the wrong time. And that’s fair, as far as it goes. But… as of the last movie, he was escalated enough to do unbelievable things, because, as I said then, he didn’t really have a choice in the matter and he had the knowledge that not-quite-as-crazy things had worked before. The problem with A Good Day to Die Hard is that McClane, at this point, believes his own hype. The plot leads him to Moscow, to determine why his son stands accused of murder. So when he shows up, tall and proud and sure of his own importance, every inch the cowboy Alan Rickman once accused him of being and eager to be in the wrong place at the wrong time where before it had always been bad luck and fate, well, naturally he ruins all manner of secret spy plans that had been in place. And I’m okay with that, it’s fine drama!

Well. It’s fine drama if there are consequences to his actions. Instead, cleaning up the mess without any hint of an apology (or even a sense that he fucked things up in the first place) is the perfect father-son bonding activity. And this, in a nutshell, is my doubt about any possible continuance. You can make a movie with an overly prideful John McClane stumbling and having to get back to his feet. But John McClane the bull, smashing everything in the china shop and being greeted as the conquering hero upon his exit? That is not a metaphor I find myself perfectly comfortable with, after the past decade or so. But, political metaphor or not, the straightforward reading leaves him superhuman and undefeatable for the first time. Without some concern about the outcome, is it really worth watching?