THE end credits proclaim that John Moore’s smashing (in the most correct sense of the word) actioner involved 10,000 people who put in 600,000 person-hours.

Somewhere in the accountant’s report, there might be a one-line item “Reparation of wrecked vehicles, buildings and public infrastructure” showing expenditure of at least eight significant digits in USD.

CGI can fake whatever the budget allows, but here the automotive mayhem on the streets of Budapest and Moscow looks too real for dissimulation!

Bruce Willis reprises New York cop John McClane whom he first hurled at us in 1988 single-handedly disposing of a very bad guy, then in three films all pretty much the same. Number five breaks that mould. John McClane Jr (Australian Jai Courtney) needs extraction from a Russian jail together with his co-accused Komarov (Sebastian Koch). So dad goes to surprise the lad.

Within less than a day, the McClanes have run a demolition derby through Moscow, been blown up more times than comfortable, dropped from several great heights, dodged small arms fire and kept going with wounds that would have had mere mortals in intensive care. So much action, so many dead bad guys, such a thin dramatic thread leading to a Chernobyl vault full of weapons-grade Uranium 235.

And that’s about it. The screenplay by Skip Woods doesn’t ask Willis to deliver better acting so he doesn’t.

At Dendy, Hoyts and Limelight