Page 16 THE VILLADOM TIMES II, III & IV • February 27, 2013 Fifth installment of popular franchise lacks fire by Dennis Seuling The awkwardly-titled “A Good Day to Die Hard” marks the fifth time New York City cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) finds himself in the midst of mayhem fighting bad guys. This time, his penchant for chaos takes him to Moscow, where his estranged son, John Jr. (Jai Courtney), has been imprisoned. The elder John hardly has time to shrug off jet lag before he is off punching Russians and stealing cars for high-speed chases through unfamiliar streets, plowing through parked cars, and causing the local populace to scurry for their lives. The problem with franchises is that eventually writers fail to come up with anything remotely original and instead retread the elements that previously drew audiences. Director John Moore gives viewers lots of action in the form of explosions, gun fights, jumps through plate-glass windows, a rocket-firing helicopter, and other dangerous stunts unjustified by a plausible, engaging script. The hackneyed theme is John’s desire to make up for not being a good father when his son was growing up. The job called and he answered, even when it meant failing his child-rearing responsibility. Viewers also discover that John Jr. has followed in his dad’s footsteps, not in law enforcement, but in a field more clandestine. Father and son have a hard time communicating, since there is a lot of pent-up resentment in John Jr., but when they join forces to keep a Russian political prisoner out of the hands of his powerful enemies, they bond Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, and Sebastian Koch in ‘A Good Day to Die Hard.’ and improbably dodge the enormous firepower directed at them. Like Wile E. Coyote of cartoon fame, they are unstoppable, and accumulate only a few bruises and one minor gunshot wound between them. Director Moore stages the action well enough, and these scenes are the film’s best, but characterization is strictly at the level of Screenwriting 101. The bad guys are plentiful, but are merely gun-toting henchmen. The head bad guy remains a mystery for much of the running time, but is terribly unimpressive once revealed. The movie needs a bad guy of the stature of Jeremy Irons or Alan Rickman, actors who brought their best game to earlier “Die Hard” installments and were a challenging match for McClane with their megalomaniacal panache. Willis basically phones in his performance, with the occasional -- though not especially memorable -- quip punctuating his nearly constant duels with death. Courtney makes little impression as the son who is more like his father than he would like to admit. There are many missed opportunities to explore the reasons for the son’s deep resentment; the script is content to sum them up with a variation of “Daddy was never home enough.” Father consistently outshines son in sensing danger, escaping from it, and seeing the bigger picture. While this was clearly done to showcase Willis as the movie’s star, it might have been more interesting and less predictable to have had John Jr. take the lead. Rated R for violence and strong language, “A Good Day to Die Hard” taxes its audience’s patience with computergenerated stunts that defy the laws of physics, gravity, and common sense. They are fun to watch, but detract from any semblance of credibility.