For the lead, it's the same #!*$ happening to the same guy twice; but for the audience, Harlin provides a different, more escapist approach to proceedings.

Rating: 7/10 (27 August 2010)

As an action film with a substantial amount of plot and peril running along side the necessity to develop and unfold the tales of a number of different parties and characters, whom share differing attitudes to the overall situation, Die Hard 2 is probably a lot better then it really has any right to be. Renny Harlin's film covers American mercenaries turned terrorists with an agenda; the strains airport staff suffer as a result of this; passengers in the planes above essentially rendered hostages; later, the clinical and urgent actions of a special operations team specifically called in as well as the eponymous hero of the entire franchise: police lieutenant John McLane and where he fits in to all of it. The director does an admirable job in balancing each of the perspectives, borrowing from the first Die Hard film of two years previous, but with a knowing sense, whilst trying to go bigger and consequently better with more threat; more action and more spectacle. It doesn't quite cross that divide in the manner some sequels do but needless to say, the film suffices.
The film is a part of a brief pre 9/11 canon of terrorists or whatever seizing a mode of public transport or otherwise and wrecking havoc; a canon you might cite began with the first Die Hard. With films such as Executive Decision; Speed; Under Siege 2; Air Force One and Con Air following on in later years, two or three of which maintained an aeronautical theme, Die Hard 2 stands somewhat high and mightily over its aforementioned cousins. This 1990 film sticks to the first film's guns in following Willis' John McLane caught way out of his depth; here, a similar premise having him arrive at a large, busy locale with the aim to meet up with his wife for the Christmas period. Like the L.A. based high-rise of the first, in which the New York cop was a blurry eyed fish out of water in this more intimate and free flowing California, Dulles airport is a hostile Washington based zone of paranoia, security driven authority and routine.
The film will begin with McLane's car being towed from a no-park zone, plunging him into a realm of failure or pertaining to struggle in his surroundings. The location of the airport interior is busy, chaotic even, with a mass of bodies cramped into close proximity with one another for the festive period and McLane has to work hard just to find a phone, get from one interior place to another and deal with a shooting that carries its own little tasks. McLane's role of being that rose amongst the thorns is verbally reiterated to us by a certain Carmine Lorenzo (Franz), a chief of airport police whom tells McLane that he is "in my little pond now" and that he himself is "the big fish that runs it".
The antagonist of the piece is a certain Colonel Stuart (Sadler), a former U.S. Army Special Forces trooper whose introduction is inter-cut with McLane's and sees him practise martial art moves in low lighting with nothing on but the television, something he promptly turns off by fast-drawing a remote control. The sequence demonstrates control, precision and a balanced sense of both aggression and technique; echoing his attitudes to the task at hand he'll later face and how he'll deal in going about completing it. A point is additionally made so as to highlight McLane's inability to apparently operate in the "digital" world, with some casual jibes at this lack; the film thus planting its final seed reflecting the magnitude of what McLane's up against by making so as to show Stuart's troops set up a load of extravagant looking machines and computers highlighting the ease in their ability to do what comes so difficultly to McLane. The rouge Special Forces troopers apprehend the entire airport's electronics and use them so as to make the interception of a South American drug baron who's being brought into the airport, in custody, so as to face charges. He is Ramon Esperanza (Nero) and is faced with the curious situation have having just the solitary in-flight guard watching over him.
Despite drawing on inspiration from the first Die Hard, the sequel cannot quite top it. Gone is the estrangement McLane had from his wife, here meaning small intricacies such as the use of the gold watch she received as a gift from a male co-worker acting as the representation of the emotional distance between them; later cast away during said film's finale. Kept is the idea of McLane being caught in the middle of a feud between the police or figures of authority and the wrong-doers and kept is the sense of danger. His wife, Holly (Bedelia), is given little to do this time other than remain in the sky and play the role of a person no different to anyone else whom needs rescuing as her strong, empowering role from the first film is substituted for a subplot with journalist from the first film Richard Thornburg (Atherton), who coincidentally is on her plane. Holly's clashing with Thornburg runs on what he did in turning up to the McLane residence with a camera crew in the first film, and her victory over him here does not carry the substantial weight her role did in the first film; in that the attack is rendered personal and stops Thornberg from essentially doing what his job is. General suspense and whatever pot boiling there is in the film is replaced towards the end with wall to wall action, mostly chases involving snowmobiles; helicopters and jets but it is effective and harmless enough via Harlin's decent enough action directing. The film is an intriguing battle of wits and oneupmanship running on a race against time premise as the planes above have their fuel levels fall. It goes bigger than the first but doesn't quite go better.