A Good Day To Die Hard: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
John McClane (Bruce Willis) is back and trouble has found him once again. This time he heads to Russia to help his estranged son (Jai Courtney) who has been incarcerated as a result of an assassination. When an explosion orchestrated by Viktor Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov), a corrupt Russian official, happens as the younger McClane is about to stand trial with a political prisoner named Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch), both men escape with Chagarin’s men following close behind. John gets thrown in the the mix and tries to figure out how exactly can he help his son without brin ging down all of Russia with him.
I’m a HUGE Die Hard fan but I didn’t love the previous one like I did the rest. So when I first popped this in I was already going in kind of reluctant that the film was going to fall victim to the formula before. I was pleasantly mistaken. The film had a feel of the original Die Hard in a sense that it had TONS of action and relied little on CG effects. In this day and age it’s a rarity to see that. It was a nice surprise and even though I really doubt this is the last DH film I felt like it came full circle. Willis, even though he’s getting older he hasn’t missed a step one bit. In fact I think he’s even more intimidating than when he first started playing McClane. Courtney was an excellent choice to play John’s son. He almost has a sense of darkness about him that makes his character appealing and fresh. Someone was needed to be an “equal” to John and he was definitely it. The Russia setting was a fantastic idea because honestly at this point the “fish out of water” plot was the perfect way to keep things feeling new but I think they shouldn’t do it again. It may cause the franchise to jump the shark. All the action sequences were so good but my favorite by far has to be the triple car chase. That was an impressive/extensive work of art and the Mercedes product placement was a good one as well…HaHa! The theatrical cut of the film differs just a bit from the extended version. McClane’s daughter seems to have been taken out of the story completely but they did add a few more “character development” type scenes which were good along with a humorous scene with father and son stealing guns from the trunk of a mafia type bad guy. If you’ve been itching for DH to get back to its roots then you won’t be disappointed one bit with this one.
Special Features:
Making It Hard To Die – An hour long documentary on the making of the film.
Deleted Scenes – There were some pretty good scenes in here that I felt could’ve complimented the film nicely.
Two Of A Kind – A look at the Father/Son dynamic of the McClanes’.
Back In Action – A look at the return of John McClane.
The New Face Of Evil – The villain actors of the film sit down a discuss their characters.
Anatomy Of A Car Chase – A really good feature on how the crew created the fantastic triple car chase stunt.
Maximum McClane – A nice montage of action scenes from the Die Hard franchise including a multiple “Yippee Kai Yay” from various McClanes.
