( CNN ) -- Not your typical Valentine 's Day release , `` Die Hard '' 's fifth is Hollywood 's counterpunch to chocolates , roses and romance . It 's an anti-date movie . Well , unless your date is also your dad . Bruce Willis has been playing John McClane , off and on , for a quarter century now , and while he shows no inclination of throwing in the towel , it 's hard to see much future for the geriatric action film he and his former Planet Hollywood cronies are peddling these days with `` The Expendables . '' `` A Good Day to Die Hard '' is a more lavish demolition derby than `` Bullet to the Head '' or `` The Last Stand , '' but it 's also more slavish in its adherence to a formula that 's all but spent . No one 's heart seems to be in it , they 're just going through the motions . Why 'Die Hard ' is the perfect Valentine 's Day movie for guys . A New York cop who scarcely seems to spend any time in the Big Apple , McClane heads out to Moscow to bail out a deadbeat son , Jack , who I do n't recall featuring in the earlier movies . Jai Courtney , from `` Jack Reacher '' and `` Spartacus : Blood and Sand , '' is what they call `` fresh meat '' and a more conventional action hero than Justin Long was in McClane 's last escapade . But on this evidence McClane junior has n't inherited any of his father 's charisma or wry wit . Mostly he just looks put out , understandable as screenwriter Skip Woods makes sure senior always has the last word . Not that any of Willis ' wisecracks are anything to write home about . That trademark smirk is stretched pretty thin . It 's only after Jack has bust out of his trial , dragging a political prisoner with him ( Sebastian Koch ) that John finds out his boy is with the CIA . By then the extraction is blown , and father and son have a rogue militia wing tearing up the streets gunning for them . This is male bonding with a capital `` B , '' but comparisons with the reinvigorated 007 series only show how far behind `` Die Hard '' has fallen . A lengthy chase on the Moscow ring road throws entire fleets of Russian commuters under the proverbial bus , but still feels like an inferior copy of a similar sequence in `` Skyfall , '' while director John Moore ( `` Max Payne '' ) defaults to the ADD editing style that 's only good for disguising how thinly-imagined this show really is . Even a climactic showdown in Chernobyl , a potentially fascinating location for any movie , proves a damp squib . Moore gives us an abandoned industrial plant at night , and any radiation barely even registers as a factor ( the McClanes do n't need hazmat suits ; they 're indestructible ) . 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 . There 's always been an undercurrent of xenophobia in the `` Die Hard '' series , but this movie 's crude insistence on a corrupt , morally bankrupt Russia betrays simple-minded nostalgia for those Cold War days when the Berlin Wall demarcated good and evil . Do I ask too much from an action film ? If so it 's only because I have n't forgotten how good the first `` Die Hard '' was ( and still is ) . The producers keep throwing more money at the franchise , but in this case more is less . Less attention to character , coherence and suspense , the very qualities that made `` Die Hard '' stand out in the first place . `` A Good Day to Die Hard '' ? A good time to call it a day .
Bruce Willis is back for the latest installment in the `` Die Hard '' franchise . The film will be released on July 24th, 2014 and stars Willis, John Malkovich, Gary Oldman, Danny Trejo and Morgan Freeman as well as a cameo appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Critic says it may be time to call it a day .