Escape to the Movies: A Good Day to Die Hard

[maninahat]

- And the biggest of them all... Driving to Chernobyl.
Ok, just take a map and look at where those two are. No seriously do it. They drove all of that in one night or so. And the Maybach may prove pretty useless on the Russian roads. Cause this isn't a German autobahn. This would be bumpy as hell. Also the countryside petrol would kill the maybach.
Also Chernobyl is in Ukraine, which many of you might not know (apparently you don't) is a different country. So Willis would have to cross a national border in a stolen car full of guns with no passport.
And even if he got through that he'd have to get into Chernobyl, which is kinda locked down due to radiation.

Watching the review I was already pretty surprised that they'd end up in Chernobyl, but they actually drove there? Good lord that's retarded.

It reminds me of an episode in CSI, in which they were examining the history of a secret Nazi sympathiser. What happened was that some German character had found some Jews in 1940s Berlin, and offered to take them to the border. Instead of taking them to Switzerland though, he tricked them and took them to the Nazis in Auschwitz...Auschwitz is in Poland. He would have had to drive for hundreds of miles when he could have simply driven to the nearest police station. Movies just don't give a shit about geography.

 

[gorfias]

Chernobyl isn't Russian

That, plus Die Hard 3 wasn't even supposed to be a Die Hard movie. Think I heard that once they cast Bruce Willis, they changes a few names around and then made it into one. So that sorta makes it even more sad that the others were worse.

I'm not sure any of the Die Hard movies are supposed to be Die Hard movies. They get a great idea and mold it to fit the McClain story. (I heard particularly of part 1 and 4.)

I loved 4. It got weak by the end, but it was very inventive and different. The whole cyber thing going on was a hoot. Silent Bob was in it. And it had an internal logic to the inventive story.

This was a mess. Bob is right: 2 escapes by impossible jumps. But the story makes no sense. The opening chase scene is pretty stupid and the choppy cutting trying to make it look like more was going on than actually was made me physically ill. There were a million twists and betrayals in an attempt to give it a plot. They just don't work.

Bruce used up a lot of my good will on this one. I doubt there will be a Die Hard 6. So much wasted. With the anticipation built for this, how hard would it have been to make it great?

EDIT: Inspiration for DH1 http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Lasts-Forever-Inspiration-Film/dp/1935169181

 

[Nomanslander]

Chernobyl isn't Russian

I was about to mention that as well. (^-^)

No, but it was a Soviet thing, and that's how a lot of Americans still generalize anything to do with Russia.

In our minds it's like...

Russia:

-former soviet union... now good guys... maybe??
-still got a shit load of nukes
-scary crazy mafia
-onion shape towers
-cold as fuck
-vodka
-really really hot woman
-damn they got some really hot woman
-KGB... they still exist right... ??
-country all bankrupt as fuck
-cold as a mofo
-Chernobyl... wait that's in Ukraine? Well isn't that like Russia light? It was all Soviet and I can't tell the two countries apart. Do Ukrainians even have their own language or they also speak Russian? Oh... they do! Still sounds like Russian.

(looks up Ukraine... looks up Ukrainian woman)

-Oh shit... their women are even hotter!



And that there is the full extent of an average Americans knowledge about all that. Actually that's about what you'd expect from an slightly above average American. An average American and a dumb one now... I don't even want to go there.

0.o

 

[Krat Arona]

Did Bob just say to go see both of the Expendables movies before seeing DH5? Damn o.o Shit just got serious.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Well except for the fact that Moviebob mixed up the Mi-24 Hind from early in the movie with the Mi-26 Halo (a freight helicopter roughly the size of a C-130 Hercules) from the end of the movie (at which point every aircraft fan just smacked themselves with the most convenient limb available) I guess he raised some fair points.

 

[punipunipyo]

Damn, I think I have seen every previous Bruce Willis film. Curse this time of year and its lack of decent cinema!


Interestingly, this is the first Die Hard film that was actually written to be a Die Hard film. The first two were based on completely unrelated books--the first was 1968 film starring Frank Sinatra [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/762646.Nothing_Lasts_Forever]. The third and fourth films were screenplays floating around Hollywood where they penciled in John McClane for the main character.

Do people remember the broken glass scene in the first die hard? Where the bad guys realise JM is bare footed so they shoot out all the windows covering the floor with broken glass so he's trapped or has to run across the room slicing his feet to ribbons, which he does and in the next scene you see a floor covered in blood and John McClain in agony pulling glass out of his feet while smoking. And now we have him thrown from a helicopter through a glass window, fall through more glass celings and only get a graze.

I was rewatching the series recently, and I pinpointed the moment John McClane changes from vulnerable everyman to invincible superman: Halfway through Die Hard With a Vengeance (i.e. III) he's shot forty feet into the air by a high pressure waterspout and lands on the side of a road with no injuries.

Oh, I watched the one with Jet-Lee in, and I thought it was so pitiful (making Jet looking like the honorable good guy who's ass kicking the stupid cops around)I skipped all the die hard that came after that...

Jet Li wasn't in any of the Die Hard films. Were you thinking of Lethal Weapon 4?

oh yeah!~ that one... hahaha... sorry... I only watched the die hard1, and the one with the truck VS jet fighter one... but really... both DieHard/LethalW to me, didn't make much difference in impressions that's why I get them wrong... sorry... haha

 

[pearcinator]

Yeah...it was very average (probably the worst of the lot to be honest) and this is coming from a Die Hard, Die Hard fan! The first Die Hard is (to me) the best action movie ever made and the 3rd one comes pretty close to beating it too. This one was boring (I could tell from the trailers it was going to be) but I was hoping to be surprised (after all, it's rated R instead of PG!) but...it wasn't.

In fact, to me it wasn't even a 'Die Hard' movie! They could have simply called it 'Mother Russia' and changed the name of Bruce Willis's character to 'Joe McJoejoe' and it would have been the same thing. At least the 4th movie still felt like a Die Hard movie...this one didn't. Pretty disappointing to be honest (since the Stallone and Arnie movies were pretty bad too)

 

[Arklyte]

Chernobyl isn't Russian

You'd be amazed how many people forget that.

Amazed? I doubt that I'll be amazed that people that "exported democracy" to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan(our goverment was stupid enough to try the same thing that US did in previous two, but US somehow decided that they'll do better. Of course I'm sure that high reserves of copper and lithium are worth a few hundred thousand "patriots"), once again Iraq and still being able to believe in "bad russians" don't know much.
Sorry for this little off-topic outrage, just tired of it.

 

[Markunator]

The fact that you keep doing these quicky deconstructions in almost every review comes off as pretentious and it gets old after a while.

Why? Because he goes into the history of the franchise and why it was successful? You're most likely just using the word "pretentious" because you don't like people being smarter and/or more knowledgeable than you are.

 

[John the Gamer]

The Fifth Element is one of my favorite movies. They should do another one of those, but with Bruce in a supporting role as, I don't know, the Terran president or something.

On second thought, scrap that. I don't want that movie screwed up.

 

[Markunator]

The fact that you keep doing these quicky deconstructions in almost every review comes off as pretentious and it gets old after a while.

Why? Because he goes into the history of the franchise and why it was successful? You're most likely just using the word "pretentious" because you don't like people being smarter and/or more knowledgeable than you are.

Fans of the series don't need a deconstruction telling them why it's good. It gets annoying, and there's this air of "I like this movie for all these smart people reasons, rather than enjoying it for the simple reasons".

What the hell are you even talking about? I think you're just desperately digging for reasons to harp on Bob. And smart people often tend to enjoy films for smart people reasons - not that you would know anything about that ...

You know what is definitely not a sign of intelligence. Calling people idiots just because they have a different opinion than you.

It is my opinion that Bob comes across as pretentious for the reasons I mentioned and besides most smart people can enjoy things for simple reasons (see porn and the 3 Stooges).

I'm sorry, but I just cannot fathom how it can be pretentious to go into detail about a certain franchise? Bob does this in lots of his reviews, what's so different about this one?

 

[Cpt. Slow]

No Bob, most action films get the stab of death from bourgeois critics. Even if they were pretty damn good. And your review has no credibility at all because you painted Chernobyl as 'something Russian' but most well informed people know that it's not in Russia, it's in the Ukraine as most people above me already mentioned. I enjoyed and took Die Hard 5 for what it is: a silly over-the-top action film which can be enjoyed with popcorn and a soda to wash it down with. And if people gave the first 3 Die Hard films more credit then they actually deserved, well, at least the first two had some good plot turns and twists but in after part two, you could guess what was going to happen in the third one.

 

[Farther than stars]

Chernobyl isn't Russian

I was about to mention that as well. (^-^)

Yeah, that's something that everyone should have noticed. I mean, I have no problem with a small factual error, but you should never talk about a city or region you don't know anything about, especially because regional sovereignty can be such a sensitive issue. I mean, this is on par with saying that Sri Lanka is Indian or that Sydney is the capital of Australia.

 

[Miral]

The Fifth Element is one of my favorite movies. They should do another one of those, but with Bruce in a supporting role as, I don't know, the Terran president or something.

On second thought, scrap that. I don't want that movie screwed up.

QFT, on both points.

I think I've seen about three quarters of those movies. (Also: Hudson Hawk = awesome.)

And I agree with the ranking at the end too (though I haven't seen 5 yet). But as another poster already said, it's the only ranking that makes sense.

 

[Slowking]

Chernobyl isn't Russian

Yep. On that note, did they explain how the McClanes got to Chernobyl? The borders between Russia and the Ukrain aren't exactly closed but casual travel also isn't exactly easy either, afaik.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Honestly Bob, I walked into 5 struggling to remember what happened in 4. I know 1 through 3 but 4 and now 5 are lost to me.