A quiet death

One of the principal high-concept delights of the Die Hard series is how they have continually expanded the theatre of action, from the upper confines of a tower block, to an airport, to the whole of New York City (and a bit of border with Canada), to the entire eastern seaboard of the USA.  A Good Day to Die Hard (a homage to Star Trek fans familiar with Klingon phraseology?) ruptures that by merely switching one transcontinental situation for another, instead of making it intercontinental.  This is one of the myriad disappointments of Die Hard 5.  A disappointing 25th anniversary.
Starting with the title - this does not suggest it is part of a series but rather outside it.  In a sense it is continuing the tradition of Live Free or Die Hard, though that movie was released in Europe as Die Hard 4.0, one of the cleverest sequel numbering, instantly delineating the plot with digital high-tech proliferating.  It is indicative of the laziness with this project that they couldn't think up something a bit more jazzy.  The association with the first film has been lost which juxtaposed the meaning of the diehard (the holdout, the one who never gives up) with painful death.  Now only the latter, er, survives.
One would have thought after Die Hard 4.0, John McClane would have been permanently maimed after having to shoot through his body just below the collarbone to kill the chief bad guy.  It seems he has Wolverine-like powers of recovery.  But that was between flicks.  Here John and his son John McClane Junior (continuing from Die Hard 4.0 with casting a different actor to the children ones in the original Die Hard) suffer all manner of assaults on their body, yet after a few minutes they're fine and dandy, like the emotional bond with McClane and his son.  Credibility is stretched all over the picture.  The crazy highlight is the car chase through Moscow but it has an unhappy combination - we've seen it all before in other action films and it doesn't ring true (a 4x4 having more ramming power than a semi-tank?).  Then there's the trip to Chernobyl - after giving the villains a few hours head start in a helicopter, they can drive 500 miles+ south with no driver break and arrive a short while after the bad guys, with no exhaustion from such a long trip.  Then again, Ukraine is never mentioned (and they cross no border points either) so ignorant multiplex viewers might think the nuclear complex is in Russia (though they will never make the mistake of confusing it with Grenoble, after John is corrected by his son, though not to the extent that Grenoble is not in Switzerland - are the film-makers as ignorant?).  Finally, though the recurrent leitmotif of 'it's about money' pops up - "It's always about the money," John McClane Snr wearily regales (not in Die Hard 2, it wasn't) - there's no referencing all the glass being shattered from the first in the franchise, seemingly only to affect the bad guys.  Mention must be made of the super-water that, with a few squirts, wipes out all radiation.
As for the villains, there are a few twists and turns but its view of Russians is not far removed from the dismissiveness of that other Bruce Willis vehicle Armageddon.  Though there are a few twists, with such Russophobia on display (spoiler coming up), one cannot trust any Slavic character of any significance, as I predicted and as is borne out.  The twist also exonerates McClane for all the carnage caused in Moscow (conveniently).  The characterisation is one-dimensional - when the chief henchman displays an affinity for raw carrots and tap-dancing, it is gimmicky and adds nothing to what follows.  The only credible (but highly morally dubious) thing is when (spoiler) McClane Jnr justifies his CIA training and throws a defenceless bad guy off a building (it references Hans Gruber's demise in Die Hard, but that was in self-defence and had an exquisite high-concept behind it, as he was holding onto the company wristwatch of Holly Gennaro McClane which symbolised how the Nakatomi Corporation was tearing the couple apart and ostensibly to their destruction; in Die Hard 5, it is just thuggery), the camera cutting away just before his head hits the rear rotor of a helicopter.  The villainness doesn't get involved in any high-kicking (as in Die Hard 4.0) with either McClane, boringly becoming a kamikaze.
Bruce Willis gives as jaded a performance as he did on The One Show.  Although he gets a few good lines, he knows it is rubbish he's in.  It is as distinguished as Hitman but without the performance of Timothy Olyphant (who played the main villain in Die Hard 4.0).  The franchise follows a pattern of a great first, a good second, a poor third, a good fourth and a feeble fifth.  I read a rumour that before Die Hard 4.0 was made, Bruce Willis was given a choice by the studio: either have Steven Seagal as a co-star or have it set aboard the space shuttle, with the columnist begging for Willis to go into space.  It seems the final frontier is the only place that Willis can go, if they wish to escalate it but I wouldn't put any money on it being made.  This last film has seemingly put the franchise in its grave.