I guess I should have known this wasn’t going to be a great experience even before the previews began. The “host” at the Arclight in Sherman Oaks said.. “Enjoy Live Free or Die Hard”. I asked, “Isn’t this A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD?” He replied, “Yeah, I guess.” When even the theater host can’t remember the name of the movie, you are in trouble. Ok, it wasn’t as bad as all that. Lots of action. Lots of cool set pieces (especially near the end). And Bruce Willis trying his best to make us remember the best of John McClane. But the pieces never seem to fit together right. The writing is hacky. The dialog seems forced, like Willis is in search of his next great one-liner that never comes. At the end he falls back on the old reliable “Yipee kai yay, mother#$%er”. By that point you’ve almost lost interest. Jai Courtney, who was so good as the bad guy/enforcer in Jack Reacher, doesn’t seem will used here. He plays McClane’s son Jack, who is a CIA operative trying to get a Russian dissident out of Moscow with an important file that will keep the world safe from the next Russian leader. There are a couple of moments where the two connect, but their distance as father and son results in almost zero chemistry on screen. As the plot unravels there’s a pretty interesting twist that I didn’t see coming. The rest of the cast is populated by a bunch of no-names or Russian actors I have never heard of or seen before. Most notable is Sergey Kolesnikov, who plays the powerful politician with bad intentions. He’s horrible. No one is THIS bad an actor. He is indescribably awful. I wasn’t that disappointed, because I had relatively low expectations. In the end, it failed to deliver what you want out of a “Die Hard” movie, great action, witty banter and Willis kicking butt. Maybe it’s time to retire the DIE HARD series and let John McClane rest. — Alan Yudman