Movie Review: A Good Day to Die Hard (+trailer)

A lot has been made of the 25th anniversary of the Die Hard franchise.

Questions have been asked about whether it is time to move the ageing Bruce Willis on from the series he brought to life. But although Willis may be close to 60, there's plenty of life in the old boy yet.

And in terms of a good action movie, A Good Day to Die Hard is one the best to grace our screens in a while.

Not only do the action and death rattles come thick and fast, but the plot is far more intriguing and fast-moving than you'd normally expect to find in this genre.

You can't quite work out who Willis is battling against throughout.

We meet our favourite cop, John McClane (Willis), as he's about to head off to Russia to find and, hopefully, bury the hatchet with his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney).

What John doesn't realise is that his son is now a CIA agent and he's involved in a high-level and extremely important mission to bring down a dangerous Russian politician.

Jack has to try to reach a man who has information that will stop the politician from taking supreme power.

But the evil Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov) has other ideas and wants Komarov (Sebastian Koch) to himself.

So Jack must take John along for the ride in a high-speed mission.

It is only when the McClanes and the Russians reach Chernobyl that it emerges what the ultimate prize is.

It will be interesting to see if the young McClane is being groomed to take over the old man's mantle as all-action hero in future Die Hard adventures.

Courtney, who has had a meteoric rise to prominence via Spartacus and Jack Reacher, certainly has the body and the looks to take command of the role.

A Good Day to Die Hard

(M) 110 minutes

Rating: 4 / 5