A big part of what makes John McClane such a great character is the fact that he's always in the wrong place at the wrong time and he's perpetually upset about it. The early films have some of the best action movie one-liners of all time, and even the character's most famous line - "Yippee-Kay Yay, Mother fucker!" - was originally said as a quip in response to being a "cowboy." Sadly, it sounds like none of that humor will be present in the fifth Die Hard movie, A Good Day To Die Hard.
Though the film is still in production, director Jon Moore recently took some time to speak with Empire about the new film.When asked if the film would have any glib lines or be more of a light-hearted romp, the filmmaker responded that this just isn't the era for that kind of movie. "I don’t know whether it’s post-financial crash or whatever, but I don’t think people are in the mood for that bollocks anymore," Moore said. "People are well savvy to the cynical reheating of any product, any franchise. Any shit won’t do. The bar’s a bit higher." He did ease off the idea after, saying that there are a "couple of great gags and a couple of great McClanisms," but reinforced the statement by saying, "It’s not like he this idiot, bumbling around Moscow making ‘America won the Cold War’ jokes. It’s not Carry On Die Hard, I can assure you…"
Moore also discussed the scale and scope of the movie, which he says will follow the pattern of each Die Hard film being bigger than the last. They are shooting in both New York and Moscow, giving an international flavor to the project and apparently there's one car chase that will take them 78 days to shoot.
While I agree that McClane as a character shouldn't be treated like an idiot, treating him like a superhero doesn't work either. The best elements of the character come out in Die Hard and Die Hard With A Vengeance when he is played as a unfortunate mess who regularly runs into dangerous and pain-in-the-ass problems. And that's the John McClane I want to see in A Good Day To Die Hard - no other.
