This time, you really do have to be kidding

A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD—make that, ‘Past Time To Die Like A Man’, as the 5th and last in the ‘Die Hard’ franchise sets a bar for stupidity that makes the feeble fifths in the ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘Rocky’ lines seem like The Godfather II. Twenty-six years after the first McClane mop-up and six since the previous Live Free And Die Hard (which would have made a solid adios), the 2013 buzzkill was crayoned written by Skip Woods, who we can prosecute for Swordfish and The A-Team, and inflicted directed by John Moore, guilty for Behind Enemy Lines and the s-for-brains remakes Flight Of The Phoenix and The Omen.

With the previous adventure introducing McClane’s disaffected daughter as a secondary character, this one brings out his grown son ‘John Jr.’ (Jai Courtney), also alienated from his duty consumed father and seemingly in over his head as a CIA operative dealing with crooked Russians in Moscow (a good place to find them). Endless and absurd action results, not believable for a second, and zero fun to sit through. Humor is AWOL as well.  Shot in Hungary, so Budapest plays Moscow; hard to say which city should be more insulted. Some $92,000,000 was thrown at the wall, and franchise faithful, expecting some thrills and laughs, showed up to the ka-ching of $304,654,000 around the dying hard globe. They were let down, and the series expired gasping.

Other than the thoughtful salivation ploy of bad girl Yulia Snigir shedding some clothes, the only good thing you can say about this dumb & numb’er waste is that it lasts just 97 minutes. With Sebastian Koch, Sergei Kolesnikov, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Cole Hauser.

Harsh opinion of movie does not mean reviewer has completely lost sense of proportion