A Good Day To Die Hard [Blu-Ray]

When A Good Day To Die Hard director John Moore and first assistant director Mark Cotone declare in the commentary track that they are recording the audio before the movie has been released and prophesize that much of what they say could be "tinged with irony" if it doesn't succeed, it's hard to imagine they didn't have some idea of the bomb they had on their hands. The latest entry in the venerable Die Hard series is essentially three bloated action scenes strung together with nonsensical double-crosses and empty father/son bonding. In this instalment, the world's most dedicated beat cop, John McClane (Wills), is compelled to travel to Moscow, where his son, Jack (Jai Courtney), has been imprisoned for killing a man. As it turns out, Jack is actually a CIA operative and makes a daring courtroom escape with Komarov in tow (Sebastian Koch), a fellow prisoner with valuable information on a shady politician (Sergey Koleskinov). After a chase scene that sees Willis maiming innocent motorists when he drives over their cars with barely a half-hearted apology, the plot begins to arbitrarily shift antagonists and force the two McClanes into something resembling a relationship. For reasons better left unexplained, the whole thoughtless enterprise lumbers towards a disappointing climax at Chernobyl that's sure to leave an acrid taste in the mouth of any fan of the franchise. Willis doesn't do the uninspired script any favours, sleepwalking through the role as though he thought it was enough to simply show up and mutter the occasional wisecrack. The action scenes contain little of the ingenuity that made the earlier films so entertaining, falling back instead on the shallow thrills of gunfights and the empty spectacle of well-executed, but shallow stunts. With hours of documentaries on every facet of making the film, the supplemental materials at least deserve credit for being expansive. Reminding that no one sets out to make a bad movie, it's staggering how much time, money and effort went into this misfire. Director Moore is at the forefront of the extras, proudly crowing about building the world's biggest green screen, but as he says at one point, "that's why it's John Moore and not John Less." Despite Moore's insistence that the action is always in the service of the story, you're left with the feeling there were a number of big kids behind the scenes who got a little too preoccupied with some pretty nifty toys.