Showing posts with label Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Rooting against action: How Die Hard 5 is like Lilo and Stitch.


There are any number of problems with A Good Day to Die Hard.  But the biggest sin is that it constructs its "story" in such a way that we end up rooting against John McClane.  No, I don't mean the film makes him a villain or anything that creative, I mean that we spend much of the film not wanting McClane to do what he does best: interfere with the carefully-laid plans of others with impromptu and kamikaze acts of violence.  The other prior Die Hard movies basically operated on a simple premise: John McClane is minding his own business when he gets reluctantly pulled into a horrible situation, a situation for which he is the only real hope to save the proverbial day.  He doesn't want to be the hero, but he damn-well is going to stick it out until the day is saved.  This time it's different.  This time John willingly inserts himself into a situation that he does not completely understand.  This time John is *correctly* viewed as an unwanted nuisance and a distraction by the other good guys who are trying to do their jobs.  For most of the film, John McClane is the problem rather than the solution.  In short, John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard has become Stitch.

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