The fifth installment of Bruce Willis’ career-making ‘Die Hard’ franchise, ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’, hit theaters February 14, 2013. Unfortunately, seasoned moviegoers know February is the dumping ground for lazy, unimaginative, sloppy action flicks. ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ is without a doubt the final nail in the coffin for Detective John McClane, and Toonari is here to explain why the franchise needs to bite the dust for good. Mild spoilers ahead.

John McClane has nothing left to offer the audience

The original ‘Die Hard’ was a hit: the snarky New York officer ran around kicking butt, getting beaten up, and generally pissing off one of the greatest film villains of all time. John McClane is a household name because of his lack of respect for authority, his foul mouth, and his easy trigger finger. By the fifth film, McClane is no longer an honest, lucky guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He comes across as boorish and arrogant in the Moscow setting. His character works so much better in the previous films, even in the lukewarm ‘Live Free or Die Hard,’ that in the fifth movie he seems like a hollow shell of himself.

The writers keep giving him annoying sidekicks

One of the reasons why ‘Die Hard’ was so awesome is because it was one guy hopelessly outnumbered by bigger, stronger, badder German mercenaries. Adding a foil to John McClane is unnecessary (with the exception of Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson) in ‘Die Hard 3’ because he was funny, useful, and a great character). Jack McClane (Jai Courtney) is nothing more than a younger, less interesting shadow of his father and served absolutely no purpose other than to bounce dialogue off of his much cooler predecessor.

The villains cannot hold their mud compared to Hans Gruber

By far, this new villain is the weakest threat of the bunch. The first ‘Die Hard’ characterized Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) so well that he is almost as much of a household name as McClane. He was vicious, articulate, and cunning. The new villain is dull, has weak motivations, and is stuffed full of clichés. Even worse, the villain in the trailer is not the true villain and dies in the third act with no build up. The real villain is revealed in the last thirty minutes of the film,but it does not add anything to the story.

The films are almost entirely independent of each other after the third movie

The first two ‘Die Hard’ sequels worked because they made references to the original and tied back into the story relatively well. However, the fourth and fifth films barely string anything from the previous flicks together, aside from a brief cameo by McClane’s daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Jack McClane’s continuous digs at his dad for not caring about national security make no sense when John McClane stops cyber-terrorist Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) from stealing millions of dollars that would have collapsed the U.S. government. Additionally, McClane’s previous cohorts are forgotten. The audience never finds out what happened to Al (Reginald VelJohnson), Zeus, Matthew (Justin Long) or any other characters who made it out of the earlier movies alive. It is foolish to continue making movies without referencing the characters who helped make them worthwhile.

The filmmakers seem to misunderstand why we love the ‘Die Hard’ series

There are a plethora of reasons why the first ‘Die Hard’ is an American classic. The action is relatively realistic and superb, the stakes are high, and the dialogue is wonderfully irreverent. It is an incredibly memorable film because it presented a great character with plenty of flaws, a nasty villain, an engrossing heist, and a metric ton of violence and profanity. By the fifth film, it is impossible to see any of the enjoyable aspects of the franchise any longer; it has been bogged down with sickening clichés and an invincible main character with no involvement in the story. McClane has no motivation to hunt down the villain in ‘Good Day’, and that is one of the movie’s worst flaws.

With any luck, this ‘Die Hard’ will be the last, as many reviews reflect our aforementioned issues with the flick. It is safe to say that McClane should lay down his gun and retire before he starts making the audience wish they would die. Hard.

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Twentieth Century Fox announced on February 22, 2012 that the fifth Die Hard film, ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’, will be heading to theaters on February 14, 2013 with Bruce Willis returning as the punchline cop John McClane and Jai Courtney playing his son, Jack McClane. However, is this latest installment inspiring excitement or a collective groan from the viewing public?

For example, examine the film that precedes the upcoming Die Hard 5. The fourth installment in the Die Hard franchise, ‘Live Free or Die Hard‘ (2007), made a scarce $134 million domestically, which barely covered its roughly $110 million budget.

Furthermore, the film did not receive overwhelming praise from both critics and fans who were less-than-enthused about the inclusion of Matt Farrell (Justin Long) the hacker who tagged along on McClane’s mission to take down cyber terrorist Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), nor were they pleased with the PG-13 rating the film boasted: a departure from its predecessors that joyfully used coarse language and violence to their benefit.

All of these detractors suggest that trying to update a franchise widely beloved in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s may not be the way to go. The return of Bruce Willis as John McClane has always been an entertaining experience, but one cannot help but wonder if it is at all necessary considering he seems to be doing well for himself otherwise. Willis is set to star in ‘G. I. Joe: Retaliation’ as well as ‘The Expendables II’—two large budget sequels coming later in 2012.

It is no secret that Willis enjoys playing the character that helped make him the household name he is today, but Willis is getting older and may not have much left to add to his famous role.

An additional worry is the inclusion of Jai Courtney as John McClane’s son, who has yet to appear in any of the previous films. Courtney’s biggest role as of today has been playing Varro in the Starz original series ‘Spartacus: Vengeance.’ His film resume is rather short and while that does not disqualify him from being a good actor, it does generate worry among fans if he can hold up against Bruce Willis. Willis is known for having a commanding presence and Courtney will have his work cut out for him catching up to Willis’ hard-edged portrayal of McClane.

Finally, the initial synopsis for the fifth installment is that the McClanes are dealing with Russian bad guys in Moscow, therefore introducing international issues rather than the usual domestic terrorism that McClane usually gets tangled up in. While this is an interesting development in the plot, early reports say that Jack McClane is a chip off the old block, meaning he and his father will be competing for the tough guy award.

This interaction can get tiring when John McClane has already proven the fact that he is without a doubt one of the toughest (and funniest) detectives in cinema history and needs not prove himself to his estranged son.

The script has been written by Skip Woods, whose resume may cause some anxiety among Die Hard fans. Woods wrote the screenplay for ‘The A-Team’ (2010), which had excellent dialogue, but also wrote the screenplay for ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, the universally panned X-Men spin-off, and ‘Hitman’ (2007), which was widely slammed by fans of the original video game and by nearly every film critic in the business.

So far, A Good Day to Die Hard is not off to a good start, but the cast and crew have a year to change the fans’ minds. Use it well.

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