Though we may be knee deep in Oscar prestige now, a bottomless morass of self-congratulation, we’re only a handful of weeks away from Silly Season, the post-Oscars lull when studios dump their most lackluster fart bombs, then quickly step off the elevator, casually whistling. In what I’m sure is pure coincidence, that’s when Fox releases A Good Day to Die Hard (February 14th, to be precise), the fifth of the Die Hard series, from new-to-the-franchise director John Moore, who last directed Max Payne and The Omen. But how to reinvigorate a lagging franchise about a cop who keeps getting caught in terrorist attacks? Give John McClane a son, Chad McClane, er, Jack McClane, played by Jack Reacher bad guy Jai Courtney. He’s a secret agent, of course! BOOM, a new franchise is Bourne, yo.
Let’s see if we can count the action-movie tropes packed into 180 seconds:
- Hot Bond-girl chick riding a motorcycle wearing leather (over a bikini, in this case).
- Super villain playing an all-too-literal game of chess with authorities
- Russian bad guys
- Good guy constantly called a “cowboy.”
- Explosions set to opera music.
- ACTION SCRIPT BOT IS TOO OLD FOR THIS SH*T, MEEP MORP
- Catch phrase!
- Old guy gets the old-school gun.
- Jumping out a sky scraper window.
- Bruce Willis.
Of course, no one’s expecting you to reinvent the wheel when they give you ten bucks to see Die Hard 5. I guess the more pressing questions are:
- DOES BEWBS JIGGLE?
- HOW MANEY ‘SPLODES?
DIE HARD: Bewbs haz teh jiggle. Many ‘splodes.