Wednesday 13 August 2014

A Good Day to Die Hard

[Post #14 of the Blaugust Challenge!]

The basic story here is that police veteran John McClane has an outing to Russia to find his estranged son and by doing so causes many violent deaths and enough property damage to rival Terminator 3! Unfortunately the plot is a little convoluted and for the first 10-15 minutes you might be wondering what the hell is going on. Fortunately it explains most of it well enough, but there are questions left unanswered such as: "Are there no police in Russia," and "Can you really survive taking x amount of damage and not going to a hospital?"

Instead of Bruce Willis, here's the eye candy of the movie! ;)

Acting wise it's passable but Bruce Willis looks a bit tired, grumpy and basically "been there, done that" which to be fair - his character has. I really disliked him yelling out incomprehensible stuff during the chase scene though. If that was to solidify that he's "a little crazy" then it did its job well. Overall though there are two main problems for me. Firstly, the bad guys are stupid. Yes, bad guys are expected to be stupid to a degree but wow, these guys take it to a whole new level. Some would probably qualify for the Darwin Awards.

The second problem is a bigger one, especially for an action movie of the "Die Hard" franchise. There are not enough BAD GUYS! Especially towards the end, I was wondering what happened to all the hired help. Maybe they were so stupid that they killed themselves off screen? That can't be right. According to the kill count, McClane kills around the same number in the previous two movies (and more than the first) so ... what gives? Basically, he kills them too easily. Too quickly. Possibly even offscreen. You don't even realize they died. Due to this I give it two and a half bullets out of five and would think it is one of the weaker "Die Hard" movies.

Blaugust Bonus: Speaking of Russia I've always wanted to visit Pripyat and Chernobyl, mainly because of the STALKER franchise (No not the rogue tenno in Warframe). That first person game series that put you into the heart of the deadly zone is one of my favourites, as those who have been reading this blog for awhile might know. Of course there aren't any (or should I say, as many) horrors out there in real but I thought it would always be a nice place to explore. In accordance to this, just like my one brother likes anything with a picture or the word "Dragon" on it, I'm pretty drawn to any movies, games or documentaries that take place in and around Chernobyl. Other than concerned family that tell me not to actually go for myself, the main reason I don't is the cold. I don't like the cold, and I've never seen snow in real because of it.

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