Try Harder

Rating: 1/10 (9 March 2008)

This is without a doubt one of the worst films I have ever seen. A tired, lazy procession of clichés which lacks even a fraction of the flair or imagination of any of its predecessors. What Bruce Willis was thinking when he signed up for this God only knows; next time an A-list action movie star announces that he only signed up to revive a well-worn franchise "because the script was right", you should go ahead and assume they got the word "script" confused with the word "money". I just wish for once they would be honest about it and save everybody's time.
The film itself is merely a succession of highly improbable action set pieces joined together by clunky expositional dialogue and interrupted by moments of abject boredom. The sequence where Bruce engages in hand-to-hand combat with a fighter jet (yes, really) is just plain ludicrous. Maggie Q's henchwoman(she's Asian, so of course she is an expert martial artist) must have been a terminator, it's the only way to explain why she took so long to die. Timothy Olyphant's villain must rank as the dullest screen villain in living memory; he was given literally NOTHING interesting to say or do. Oh, wait, I think he kicked a chair once. He was angry, you see. Not as angry as I was at the thought that the two hours of my life I wasted watching this drivel are now lost forever. And if I see one more pretty estranged daughter in peril/daddy's coming to save the day/I love you daddy subplot I will puke. Can whoever thinks this is an interesting dramatic device please just STOP ALREADY.
In summary, if I wanted to spend two hours watching things get smashed up I'd visit my local junkyard on crushing day. Everyone involved in this limp excuse for a movie should hang their heads in shame.