A Good Day to Die Hard 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: A movie like A Good Day to Die Hard ought to either hire someone who can write catchy dialogue and at least superficially plausible characters or just let the real artists, the stuntmen, run the whole picture. No Humans Allowed. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: At 98 minutes, this is by far the shortest of the Die Hard films, the rest of which run more than two hours. But it ends not a moment too soon. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It took 25 years, but with the fifth and latest entry, "A Good Day to Die Hard," the series has finally devolved into joyless sludge. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Few fans of the series would disagree that this sclerotic fifth installment should probably be the last. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Everything that made the first "Die Hard" memorable -- the nuances of character, the political subtext, the cowboy wit -- has been dumbed down or scrubbed away entirely. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: For anyone who remembers the "Die Hard" adventures at their vital and exciting best, this film feels like a near-death experience. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: It's "A Good Day to Die Hard," aka "We've Got No Story To Speak Of But We Do Have an Infinite Special Effects Budget and We're Not Afraid To Spend It." Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Until now, the sequels have gotten away with the cynical franchising of John McClane, but A Good Day To Die Hard, the worst entry in the series by far, exposes the hollowness and stupidity of McClane 2.0. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: While some of the sequels have been entertaining enough, "A Good Day to Die Hard" signals that it may be a better day for John McClane to retire. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Unnecessary but not unwatchable, this maintains a brisk pace as it moves through the familiar action set pieces, most of them decently orchestrated. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: A Good Day to Die Hard isn't just the weakest of the Die Hard pictures; it's a lousy action movie on its own terms. Read more

Tom Charity, CNN.com: If there's something crassly opportunistic about exploiting a real life disaster on the scale of Chernobyl for cheap thrills, that's part and parcel of the film's cynicism. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: John's appeal was always his ordinariness, but director John Moore has him surviving more explosions than Wile E. Coyote, and with hardly a scratch. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: It's all more than a little silly, but Willis' presence at least provides undercurrents of easy jocularity. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: An explosive, high-capacity-clip letdown. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: All Die Hard movies lack sense -- that's a given. This one lacks personality. And that's unforgivable. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Die Hard 5 leaves room for McClane to make a few jokes about his thinning hair and to rue that he wasn't a better father when his kids were growing up. Oh, boo-hoo. Now go kill some more scumbags. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: Every action scene is telegraphed, and most of the dialogue is irrevocably stupid. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: This is the fifth and least of the Die Hard movies. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: True, a lot of stuff gets blown up and stunts that must have cost the Earth appear with startling regularity, but the sense of exhilaration and fun that marked the best of the series has gone unaccountably AWOL. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: This is the first Die Hard movie to run well under two hours (the incomprehensible final 30 minutes have been so furiously chopped, they deserve their own show on the Food Network). Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Frenetically directed by John Moore from a sketchy script by Skip Woods, A Good Day to Die Hard has the dubious distinction of making John McClane unlikeable. He's had some bad days in the past, but this one finally got him down. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: At this point, "Die Hard" no longer describes the franchise. It describes the fans who are still willing to turn out for the noise and nonsense. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: This is the Magpie School of action filmmaking: Anytime things start to make so little sense that you might lose the audience, just throw something shiny up on screen to distract. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: This leaden flick is completely joyless. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Mr. Willis has said in interviews that he's open to a sixth "Die Hard" film. Next time, Bruce, please read the script. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A Good Day to Die Hard wants to be a movie about family values - a father and son, bonding over bullets and bombs - but it's really just about the value of a box-office franchise, and its value is on the wane. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: I guess the people making A Good Day to Die Hard don't understand that mortality is one of John McClane's most endearing qualities. Turning him into a cyborg with a sense of self-deprecating humor makes this a low point in the series' history. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: What a disappointment. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: McClane has been stripped of any real traces of an actual three-dimensional character. We feel as if we're watching Bruce Willis in a Bruce Willis movie in which Bruce Willis can survive anything while taking out the villains, video-game style. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: This series needs to die here. That would be something to "Yippee Ki-Yay" about. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Pretty much three well-staged action sequences strung together with the dumbest imaginable connective tissue. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Willis may not be the film's saving grace, but he is some kind of grace nonetheless, really the only thing in the movie. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: If Harvard Business School wants to do a case study on how to debase a once-respected brand, they needn't look any further than the Die Hard movies. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: To paraphrase a classic of Reagan-era cinema, "A Good Day to Die Hard" is a bad day to stop sniffing glue. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: A quarter-century after it began, A Good Day to Die Hard continues the franchise without undue embarrassment. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Willis and Courtney make a strong match, believable both as fractious family members and also as sarcastic adversaries forced by circumstances to work together. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: While the first Die Hard was a Swiss watch of precise plotting and layered character development - the next three installments could, at least, tell time - A Good Day to Die Hard makes lots of noise but little sense. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: As workmanlike as men in fluorescent tabards repainting the white lines on the North Circular on a wet Tuesday. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Time to hang it up, guys ... Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: A Good Day to Die Hard is pointless and joyless, a barrage of noise and chaos, an onslaught of destruction without the slightest mention of consequence. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Obnoxious, over the top and often dull. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Generally speaking, the action elements aren't the problem here. They're certainly loud enough. It's the obligatory intra-family squabbling and preposterous plotting that threaten to derail this nonsensical sequel. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: No two viewers will assemble the same narrative from this Rorschach of running men, crashing glass, and hollered exposition. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: I didn't think it was physically possible to doze off at a movie as loud as A Good Day to Die Hard, but for a few moments my mind found some distant, peaceful refuge. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Both assaultive and tiresome, "A Good Day to Die Hard" barely registers on the action movie Richter scale. It goes bang, it goes boom, and then it blessedly goes away. Read more