Way too many things in this world feel like approximations of authenticity, and this one’s no exception.

It’s remarkable how often mimicry and repetition stand in for faithfulness these days, with fewer and fewer of us even bothering to learn the subtle skills it takes to know the difference (maybe ignorance is bliss?). The original Die Hard movie is an example of how much things have changed: its creators were enormously faithful to the novel on which it was based—late author Roderick Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever.

But four films later, what do the makers of A Good Day to Die Hard have to be faithful to? Apparently, only the franchise.  Where once the Die Hard series drove pop cultural references, the current film’s creators seem content to simply regurgitate and impersonate the franchise’s signature words and deeds. Read more