You can only go to the well so many times before the well dries up. The well has certainly dried up for the Die Hard franchise. A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth installment of the series, is a major step back from the level of quality storytelling we've gotten in the past. This film is wall to wall action, which is not always bad, but it has to be interesting to keep my attention. What we have here is a retread of loud car chases, gun fights, and our heroes achieving superhuman feats while belting out cornball one-liners. I must say that I expected more and am pretty disappointed by this effort.

The plot opens with aged super cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) en route to Moscow to see his son. Jack McClane (Jai Courtney) has gotten himself arrested for shooting an associate of a Russian defense minister. This minister, and his henchman, are very worried that an imprisoned scientist, Kamarov (Sebastian Koch), is about to have his day in court and spill some dirty secrets implicating all. Jack gets himself in the same courtroom as Kamarov as the Russian baddies attack. He springs to action, rescues Kamarov, and is about to escape when he runs into his father; who is more than bewildered by these events. We discover Jack is an undercover CIA agent, whose mission was to free Kamarov and get him out of Russia. Running into dad has spoiled that plan. The three men must now find a way to escape the city with a legion of well armed goons in tow.

A Good Day to Die Hard attempts to have a father son subplot. John was the absentee father who apparently was so absent he doesn't know his son is an elite secret agent for the government. That discovery in itself is laughable and never explained beyond a few short lines of script. Then the pair engages in witless banter regarding their strained relationship...until the inevitable moment when dad and junior make good. All the while they are under constant attack and giving as good as they get, racking up a huge body count while surviving horrific injuries that would kill a human instantly. Now this is a Die Hard movie, so you expect the fantastic, and John McClane has certainly taken his licks in previous films; but what they go through here stretches the limits of disbelief. Ultimately it becomes cartoonish because it's obvious that these characters are never in danger of getting hurt.

The script for this film is lazy. Its entire purpose is to set up the next action scene. The father son plot, the Russian scientist plot, there's potential here but the filmmakers don't spend any time developing the story. It's the classic Hollywood ten pages and a bang script. Director John Moore is a capable director. His previous work (Behind Enemy Lines, The Omen) shows his ability to incorporate plot and action elements effectively. I can't tell if the film was edited to be just all action by the studio, or if this was the original concept. Regardless, the final product is lacking and not at all what I expected from a Die Hard film. We will undoubtedly get another sequel if this one does well. I hope they heed the audience disappointment, take the plot more seriously, and be more creative in the action scenes. Today is certainly not a good day to die hard.