Less Reviews, More Crap You Might Actually Want To Read

As I typed my review of A Good Day to Die Hard, something occurred to me: I didn’t want to write it.  It’s not that the film was so bad it didn’t deserve criticism (although I did find it to be generally awful), it was mainly because of the futility of my review.  I am not delusional; I am aware that barely anyone reads my reviews.  I’ve been at this for a few years now and nothing has really come of this amateur movie critic job I’ve created for myself.  Sure, at first it was quite rewarding.  I was published (and still am) in the local newspaper, and I even got a link posted on IMDb’s homepage (back when they still had a list of links at the bottom of the page).  After a year or so, I joined the Indiana Film Journalists Association, which has allowed me to feel legitimate as I get screeners and invites to early screenings.  But now it’s starting to feel a little pointless.  I’ve felt this way for a while, but I decided to keep trudging on, even though less than a dozen people read each review (trust me, I’ve checked my hit count).  After I finished that last review, however, I decided that it’s time to change.

 

First off, I will still write normal reviews when I feel like I have something interesting to say.  If I find the film mediocre and no one seems to care about it, then I won’t write anything.  To be honest, I’ve started to do this a bit already.  It’s just that if I don’t find my writing interesting, then why should anyone else?  So, only interesting reviews about interesting movies from here on out.

 

Secondly, I don’t like reading reviews, and I’ve started to understand just how pointless they are.  This is not an attack on film criticism.  I believe that films should be analyzed and discussed at length.  The idea behind reviews is simply wrong.  Reviews were originally intended to let the reader know if a movie was good or not.  Years ago, maybe that was the case, but in today’s world, reviews only serve to enrage or placate fans who have decided for themselves if a movie is good or not.  Now you only hear about reviews for inane reasons.  For example, Rex Reed’s Identity Thief review was talked about because he resorted to name-calling instead of actual analysis (of course, how you can analyze comedy is up for debate anyway).  Aside from that, the only time I see that people have commented on a Rotten Tomatoes review is when the movie is immensely popular and someone wrote a negative review.  Remember how the internet commentators freaked out when a few early Dark Knight Rises reviews were negative?  People were freaking out about a negative review for a movie they had not seen.  Is this the point of criticism? 

 

This is why I’ve become so burnt out by it all.  It seems the only way to get notice is to get gimmicky or be the first person to review a highly anticipated film.  The problem is that I live in southern Indiana, many miles away from any theatres that screen films early.  This is why nearly all of my reviews come out days after the film is released.  Also, I can’t get on Rotten Tomatoes.  My small town newspaper isn’t recognized by them and I was turned down by the Internet Film Critics Society and to be honest, I haven’t put forth enough effort to be considered by them again when I’m eligible for another application.

 

So what now?  Do I just fade away, writing one review every couple months?  That simply will not work.  I still have a strong desire to write about movies.  I’m just freeing myself from this personal obligation to review nearly everything I see in a theatre.  I used to write essays about certain films, and those essays produced the most feedback.  My essay about John Carpenter was what got me on IMDb’s home page.  My friends told me they enjoyed the essays more than the reviews, anyway.  I should have listened to them long ago.  The problem is that my few loyal readers follow the same rule that I follow: watch the movie, then read the reviews.  Many of them simply do not watch many of these films, so why should they care what I think of them?  I don’t read reviews of stuff I haven’t seen, and I certainly don’t read reviews of films I have no interest in seeing. 

 

Which brings me, finally, to my plan of action.  I am starting a new series of essays about movies I loved during my childhood and/or films I think have become unfairly forgotten.  I’m going to reminisce about the films that turned me into the movie buff I am today.  Sometimes I’ll just write my memories of the film, other times I’ll revisit the films and possibly offer a new opinion.  Most importantly, the films I will discuss will be films that have been out for years.  This way I can write about them in spoiler-filled glory, and my intended audience will most likely have already seen the movies.  These essays will be about films that I love so I won’t feel obligated to write about them; I’ll actually want to write about them, and, hopefully, people will want to read them.  I’m not too worried about that, though.  I’ll have no problem with a small hit list on my site because that’s not my goal.  My goal now is to write amusing and interesting articles about beloved (or possibly hated) films from the past. 

 

In a few days, I’ll be publishing the first of many articles about older films that I first watched, and loved, when I was a kid during the 90s.  I think it’s fitting to begin with the Die Hard trilogy.  So check back later for my article, “Childhood Memories of Die Hard.”

Yippee Ki Y- Oh, Who Cares Anymore?

Directed by John Moore, written by Skip Woods, starring Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Cole Hauser - Rated R

 

The Die Hard franchise has been ripe for parody since the first sequel.  After Bruce Willis, as Detective John McClane, wondered in Die Hard 2, “How can the same [thing] happen to the same guy twice?” it was obvious that the audience should accept the ridiculousness of the franchise and just go with it.  I’m okay with that, but I have a couple issues.  First, you shouldn’t necessarily take any advice that comes from the script of Die Hard 2.  Second, and most important, John McClane needs to continue to be that “same guy.”  Also, how unfortunate is it that the sketch from “The Ben Stiller Show” called “Die Hard 12” is starting to seem like a possibility?  (Haven’t seen that sketch?  Watch it now.)

 

Yes, Bruce Willis is still cast as John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard (I would prefer something less stupid for a title, by the way, like Die the Most Hardest or something), but he is a mere shadow of himself.  Willis’s portrayal of McClane is what makes these films great.  His exasperated tone, his quick wit, and his laughter as he takes a beating.  That stuff sort of exists in this film, but it seems so forced that it doesn’t matter.  Not to mention McClane has changed over the years.  He went from a reluctant hero forced into a situation he wants to avoid into a kill-crazy vigilante who rushes into violent situations for little or no reason. 

 

Perhaps it’s the setting.  Moving John McClane to Russia just seems wrong.  For starters, this isn’t 1985 and McClane isn’t Rocky.  This plotline about Chernobyl and nuclear weapons would have felt lazy in the first Die Hard film, much less the fifth one.  The story felt more at home in a direct-to-video Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.  Wait…is this the plot to one of the Universal Soldier DTV sequels?  (Sadly, I’m not joking.  Check out Universal Soldier: Regeneration if you don’t believe me.) 

 

So the setting sucks.  There’s still a slightly interesting bad guy for McClane to banter with, right?  Nope.  The villain is vague to the point that I couldn’t tell which plain, middle-aged Russian man was “good” and which was “bad.”  Maybe that’s the point, but it made for a lame story.  McClane does cross paths with a dancing bad guy at one point, but their banter is more head-scratching than knee-slapping. 

 

But there must be a sidekick along for the ride, right?  Die Hard With a Vengeance set the bar high with the tumultuous team-up with Samuel L. Jackson, and Live Free or Die Hard gave us the timely and surprisingly amusing duo of Willis and Justin Long.  Good Day introduces the barely talked about son of John McClane played by Jai Courtney.  Courtney previously played a thug in Jack Reacher, and that’s pretty much all he’s good for at the moment.  There is just nothing interesting about this guy, whether that’s a character or acting fault is irrelevant.  I didn’t want to see these two teaming up for anything, especially since the new character is barely established and we’re given almost no explanation for their hatred for one another aside from the fact that it must be hard to be the kid of an action hero. 

 

The upset kid dynamic just makes no sense for a film like this.  The audience has almost no knowledge of this son character, so we’re with McClane all the way.  We’ve been through four movies with this character, so if we’re taking a side, guess which one we’re going with?  On top of that, we don’t know specifically what McClane did to upset the kid, so the son comes off as an ungrateful jerk.  Who thought it was a good idea to try to get the audience to hate the main character for being a dead beat dad?  I hope this duo isn’t the future of the franchise.  Actually, after this, I’m not sure I want a future for this franchise.

 

All of these major elements aside, this is still Die Hard, and that name has become synonymous with crazy action (whether or not that’s a good thing is beside the point now).  If the action holds up, then this film could be barely worth a watch.  The action is…crazy, sure, but it doesn’t save the film.  So much of it seemed like it was pointlessly trying to be insane.  Did you hate the sight of McClane on a fighter jet during the last film?  Then you won’t care for this one at all.  As for the style of it, I didn’t know what to think once it was over.  There were so many strange, extreme slo-mo moments.  Slow motion explosions?  How is that impressive?  And who wants to see two people falling in slow motion for what seems like five minutes?  Upon research, I found that director John Moore had also made the abysmal Max Payne, and then it all made sense. 

 

After all of this bashing, though, I can’t tell the die hard (pun totally intended) fans to skip this one.  It’s still Bruce Willis and he’s still John McClane, kind of.  Some fans are bound to like it.  I really wanted to, but I can’t ignore the utter disappoint I felt walking out of the theater.  If you’re on the fence, maybe this will help you: I am now going to re-watch Die Hard 2 because I think I might like that sequel more than this.  If you’re the same type of fan as I am, then that should tell you how much I disliked this movie.  Watch at your own risk.