A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD - What Are The Critics Saying So Far?

Ultimately, even more than 2007’s "Live Free or Die Hard," "Good Day" never lets McClane be McClane. Gone is his taunting snark and quick-witted preparedness; instead he seems like a jerk with a thing for guns. Willis looks bored, his charisma on autopilot as he waits for his paycheck to clear. When someone tells him "not to make an even bigger mess of things," by movie’s end, that seems pretty hard to do.

"Something stinks," says Bruce Willis’ NYPD detective John McClane just before the first of several heavily telegraphed double-crosses are sprung in the Moscow-set "A Good Day To Die Hard" — the fifth and by far the worst installment in this venerable franchise. Actually, Bruce, what stinks is the script — which is woefully lacking the kind of one-liners and memorable bad guys that helped make working-class hero McClane so iconic he’s still around after 25 years. Even the action sequences are pretty much by the numbers this time.

Everything that made the first "Die Hard" memorable — the nuances of character, the political subtext, the cowboy wit — has been dumbed down or scrubbed away entirely. I’m not saying I wish it was the '80s again — or maybe I am. If that makes me a grumpy old man, it’s John McClane’s fault.

At 98 minutes, this is by far the shortest of the Die Hard films, the rest of which run more than two hours. But it ends not a moment too soon.

Whether the Die Hard you know and love or not, it’s still an adrenaline-pumping thrill ride. There’s an extended brutal car chase through Russia containing armored trucks flying and pick-ups driving over gridlocked traffic, unbridled R-rated carnage from a seemingly endless supply of automatic weaponry, and a completely outrageous scene aboard a truck inside a helicopter as both spin towards a crash. The sarcastic humor of the McClanes multiplies with the constant back and forth between like minds, continuity is kept intact with a cameo from Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and even one of the “old jokes” aimed at Willis’ senior citizen hits big despite the reference to 1986 being two years before the character original hit the big screen. It’s an action flick on Valentine’s Day—what more did you want?

At the risk of sounding ungrateful for a fresh "Die Hard" sequel, Russia needs its own John McClane movie the way Uncle Sam needs a bright red babushka. On the flimsiest of pretexts, Bruce Willis' obstinate hero travels all the way to Moscow to find trouble in "A Good Day to Die Hard," teaming up with his never-before-seen son to stop a generic terrorist from stealing weapons-grade uranium from Chernobyl -- a subpar plot that feels suspiciously like someone tried to plug McClane into a preexisting screenplay. Fox's shaky bid to boost this installment's international appeal could backfire domestically.