Die Hard 2 (1990)

3 out of 4

Starring: Bruce Willis, William Sadler, Bonnie Bedelia, Art Evans, Fred Dalton Thompson, Dennis Franz, John Amos, William Atherton, Reginald Veljohnson

Director: Renny Harlin

Time: 124 mins

Even with its spectacular premise, the plot of the original Die Hard possessed some believability because of the fascinating battle between the everyman hero, John McClane (played by Bruce Willis), and the multidimensional, brilliant villain, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). McClane never asked to be trapped in the high-rise Nakatomi Tower, running for his life while trying to save those of his wife and her co-workers from a group of terrorists. And Gruber was that rarest of Hollywood bad guys - cool, charismatic, smart, and evil. One could expect McClane to be living in relative peace after that once-in-a-lifetime episode, going after and arresting common criminals rather than those wearing expensive suits and wielding Uzis and bazookas. And one could expect McClane to expect that, too. But, no. McClane is thrust back into international terrorist intrigue when he goes to pick up his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) from Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C., in the imaginatively titled sequel, Die Hard 2: Die Harder.

Die Hard 2 knows it's preposterous that McClane could be up to his neck in the middle of a terrorist plot again, and makes frequent fun of that notion by having Willis say lines like, "How could the same thing happen to the same man twice?" If one can suspend disbelief, however, Die Hard 2 is an often thrilling, if episodic, ride, filled with all kinds of gunfights, fistfights, and several planes being destroyed in massive explosions. The action doesn't flow as smoothly as in the original, and the villains are less interesting, but several of the setpieces will have you on the edge of your seats.

The story starts with McClane arriving at Dulles Airport to pick up his wife. It's just before Christmas, and a snowstorm is heading in. It just so happens that South American druglord General Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero) is also being flown to the same airport via an extradition treaty. Ever the cop, McClane senses something is wrong when he witnesses some suspicious activity near the luggage area. The airport police, led by Captain Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis Franz in his pre-NYPD Blue days), and air tower chief Trudeau (Fred Dalton Thompson), don't believe him when he tells them to dig deeper. When a renegade group of mercenaries headed by Colonel Stuart (William Sadler), who have come to Dulles to rescue the general, cut the power to the airport runway lights, it's too late. The terrorists state that if their demands aren't met, they will start directing planes to fly into the airport tarmac. With his wife in one of the planes above, and a dozen others circling and low on fuel, McClane takes it upon himself to stop the terrorists.

The original Die Hard was taut and claustrophobic due to its constrictive tower locations. Die Hard 2 loses some of that tension by virtue of the bigger battlefield. No matter how contained the airport is, even with a snowstorm shutting them in, the level of claustrophobia is just not the same. McClane is also not trapped and alone this time, and it's hard to believe that none of the airport staff, whether they be policemen, engineers, or even air controllers, wouldn't go and help him. He had plenty of would-be, if stupid, assistance the first time around, but this time it almost entirely is a one-man war. Still, the action scenes deliver the goods. There is a furious machine gun battle early on, followed by an exhilarating snowmobile chase, and then a very exciting punching match on the wing of a Boeing 747. The climax is suitably explosive and spectacular, with the special effects, in particular, still looking pretty good more than a decade later.

Watching it again after several years, some parts of Die Hard 2 look dated. Not in the effects or action scenes, but in the way it forces the crisis upon the audience. As the terrorists begin taking over, there seems to be a dramatic cue that calls for music and worried faces from the cast. Part of this may be due to director Renny Harlin's relative inexperience at that time. Harlin may know how to direct action (Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Deep Blue Sea) but his sense of pacing and dramatic impact isn't as refined as the director of the original, John McTiernan. When the action scenes are happening, Harlin piles it on, creating highly ludicrous but exciting situations for McClane to get himself out of. But in the quieter moments, Harlin seems lost.

Die Hard 2 falls down in two other aspects when compared to the original. The main villain here, Colonel Stuart, is strong, evil, and dangerous, but that's all he is. There isn't the same cunning, or the same sense of the cultured individual that Hans Gruber was. Of course, I'm not expecting him to be the same as Gruber, but the lack of development into a more multi-faceted individual means he's indistinguishable from most movie villains.

The other aspect where Die Hard 2 falls down is one of the curses of sequelitis, where some of the first film's characters are brought back for another outing, no matter how small or inconsequential. This is painfully evident when Reginald Veljohnson's Al Powell (the Los Angeles cop) has a cameo just for the sake of it, and William Atherton's Thornburg (the obnoxious reporter) returns to stir up trouble again. Realistically, neither of these two, important though they were in the first Die Hard, should have even needed to resurface.

Bruce Willis returns to the role that made him a movie star. His famous smirk is flashed more than once, and he is probably even more charming than he was in Die Hard. That his character isn't developed much in this sequel doesn't matter; we're happy to be back with someone we cheered for and enjoyed seeing in the thick of the action the first time around, and that's good enough. Besides, his character was already well-established in the prior film. McClane probably jokes a bit too much here, given the dire circumstances he and especially his wife are in, but it's a feature of the entire Die Hard series that the one-liners come thick and fast. Bonnie Bedelia doesn't have a lot to do this time around as Holly McClane, but her altercations with Thornburg are amusing. The villains, as mentioned previously, don't hold a candle to Alan Rickman and his cohorts, and we don't even get the satisfaction of seeing Willis pick them off one by one this time. The other minor characters are all fairly generic, though John Amos is imposing as an army major who taught Colonel Stuart "all he knows", and Dennis Franz adds another policeman role to his resume. Also look for Robert Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and John Leguizamo in early roles.

Die Hard 2 is bigger than the original in many ways - bigger location, bigger action scenes, and bigger explosions - but it defers to that classic in believability and pacing. That's not to say it isn't worthwhile, because it is still better than many of the Die Hard ripoffs that flooded the market in the late 80s and early 90s. But when it comes to deciding which in the Die Hard canon is king, the original remains untouched. Yippee KiYay!

(c) Joe Wong (11 December 2001)