There were a few weak points in plotting that had me questioning things from the start. I don't want to give away the plot here but in one assassination attempt a man walks in and is fairly close to the subject and tags the guy in the shoulder? Really? So right away we knew there was something off here.The movie maker may have thought he was setting up a twist, but this action was so blatantly staged we were waiting for reveal instead of being surprised when it happened.
During the scene when father and son first encounter each other, Jr. simply drives away leaving Daddy in the street. What was weird about this scene is that Jr. was being chased by bad guys so he was really leaving Daddy in the line of fire.
Jr. shows dislike for this father throughout but its never really explained why he feels this way. In one scene John Sr. says something to someone else about working too much and not being there for his kids but never do we hear Jr explain why he's being such a jerk to his father. I thought this was a weak plot point. If you're going to put this in the story, we need Jr's reason from Jr. Not some two minute remark from Dad to another person. Without Jr's point of view he comes across as a jerk. Main characters should be someone we connect with, not someone we think is being a jerk.
Car chases and fight scenes: although action filled with flipping cars, mega crashes, high powered gun fights and fist fights, these weren't filmed from the best angles and sometimes it was hard to keep track of where everyone was in the scene. Some of the explosions had father and son falling from the top floor of a building, crashing through scaffolding and walking away almost unscathed. Kinda unbelievable. In all the other Die Hard's the injuries kinda matched the accidents. Here the disbelief factor was high, another detractor to the movie.
Good point throughout the movie; Explosions were big and lit up the whole screen. There were times during the movie where I cringed, closed my eyes, and almost jumped out of my seat. There was a major twist at the end that really made the movie and did kinda surprise me.
In spite of the weak plotting points this movie was a pretty good action film. It had all the right ingredients but when I left the theater I felt it could have been better. As we walked out I wasn't left with that feeling you get from a really great film. The one where the characters stay with you for a while and you don't want to let the go.
The film has the potential to be great so what happened? I didn't get one Yippie Ki Yay.
I give it 3 and a half stars out of 5. Sorry Bruce.
