Last night I was invited to a sneak preview of the new movie ‘A Good Day to Die Hard.’ Even before I saw the movie (even before I got in my car to drive to the theater) I knew what my review was going to be: “A-plus, 2 thumbs up, 5 stars, award-winning (albeit probably the MTV Movie Awards), just SO AWESOME!!!”
Now I know there are some of you who are not as obsessed with the ‘Die Hard’ movies as I am, so I took my wife with me to the movie so she could give it an unbiased review (and yeah, she will totally use this against me at a later date). Here you go:
'A Good Day to Die
Hard' Review/Survival Guide by Rachel
This Valentine’s Day there is going to be a movie released called ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ and apparently it’s a very big deal to the male population.
When Josh asked me to accompany him to the movie, I was actually under the impression that I had seen the previous movies in the series, but then I remembered that I was thinking of that one ‘Friends’ episode where Joey, Chandler and Ross talk about watching a ‘Die Hard’ marathon. Remember that episode? Joey and Ross fall asleep and have the best naps on the couch together and then for the rest of the episode Ross tries to trick Joey into napping together again. I also remembered that Bruce Willis was also on ‘Friends’ as Paul the Love Machine. OMG, ‘Friends’ was SO GOOD, right?
Anyway, I realized that was the extent of my knowledge of ‘Die
Hard’ so this was totally new to me. I do enjoy police dramas, but they usually include more interrogation, investigation and arraignment scenes instead of giant explosions, shoot outs and car chases. The latter is exactly what composes ‘A Good Day to Die Hard.’ It’s incredibly over the top, but to all the ladies that might be dragged to this movie, take comfort in the fact that, in my opinion, it’s probably the one of the better action movies Josh has taken me to lately.
In this movie, Bruce Willis plays a cop who has a lot more
skills than any other cop ever. He is once referred to as “Detective” so maybe at some point during the movie, he was promoted or has been training for a promotion.
It’s a LOUD movie and I’m not just talking about the sounds of the explosions, guns, long car chases and punching; I’m including the cheering from the audience. I don’t get it, Josh gets mad when someone cuts him off on the road, but I guess if they had the skills to drive an SUV over cars in traffic (while on a cell phone!), he would instead hoot and holler and clap his hands together. These sounds were similar to the ones I heard women making at ‘Magic Mike’ (except no one was saying “Take it off!” or whistling).
There is an attempt at a deeper storyline in the form of all the daddy issues going on in this movie. You know who else is going to have
daddy issued? The crying toddler in the theater since his dad took him to see this movie instead of reading to him.
Bruce Willis mutters A LOT of one-liners to himself and I found myself wondering if he would be a more effective bad A without them, but
then I remembered how awesome it was when another bad A, Buffy, was all snarky and hilarious and pretty while she was fighting and staking vampires so I gave him a pass for all his little comments.
Also, I always think of how in action movies no one ever seems to need to sleep, pee or eat, but they always have so much energy.
If you’re worried about staying awake during the movie, here are some things to count (If you are fortunate enough to be at a theater that serves alcoholic beverages, definitely take a drink):
- Every time Bruce Willis says he is on a vacation
- When you see the Mercedes Benz logo
- When you see a guy that is shirtless for absolutely no reason (you’ll know it when you see it)
- Slow motion scenes
- When someone is double-crossed
I don’t really have a rating for this movie, but I will say that I enjoyed it more than the Jeremy Renner Bourne movie, ‘Taken 2’ and ‘Skyfall.’
If you want even more Bruce Willis after seeing ‘A Good Day to Die Hard,’ I suggest ‘The Fifth Element’ or (obviously) his episodes of ‘Friends.’
