Good film, but nothing more than that

Rating: 6/10 (5 November 2013)

This is definitely a worth entry in the franchise, although it is undoubtedly weaker than the first film. I will come to the various weaknesses shortly. First of all, a brief overview of the film;
A group of terrorists led by Colonel Stuart (William Sadler)hi-jack Dulles International Airport in Washington DC. They take charge of the communication system at the control tower and more frighteningly they are able to take control of the electrical equipment affecting the aircraft. The purpose for this is so that they can escape with General Esperanza (Franco Nero) who is being extradited to the US on drugs charges. The instructions Stuart gives to the police and airport security are clear; he will light up 1 runway for the General's plane to land on and no-one is to approach this aircraft and no other planes are permitted to land on this runaway. The terrorists prove they are not to be messed with when their orders are disobeyed resulting in one of the aircraft crashing onto the runway due to the terrorists informing the pilot that he was 200 feet higher than he actually was. John McClane ends up involved when he spots 2 of the terrorists up to no good in the luggage room. He also has a personal interest in stopping the terrorists as his wife is on board one of the planes that they have taken control of;
There were a couple of issues I had with this film; firstly,(and this is a big one)a couple of the terrorists kill the bloke in the church house and the rest of the terrorists use this as their command base. The church house forms part of the airport, yet when the airport police discover that the airport is being hi-jacked by terrorists no-one thinks to check out the church house to see if they are there. Why? This would be an obvious place and yet no-one thinks to check there till towards the end. Also, the janitor tells McClane how to get onto the airport runway undetected via a series of tunnels so that he can intercept the General's aircraft. McClane does this successfully, but why did he go alone? If the janitor knew about this, why did no-one else know or think of it? Why didn't McClane get back up before going onto the runway? Did anyone else also think that it was rather convenient that McClane manages to acquire a deceased villain's walkie talkie where the deceased villain had kindly punched in the 10 digit code before his demise? Come on....
The acting was generally good particularly by Willis and Sadler. All of the other members of the principal cast also put in decent performances.
DH2 had the potential to be as good as the first film, but the numerous plot holes and absurdities prevent it from being anywhere near as good. It isn't an awful film by any stretch of the imagination and it is at least entertaining and action packed. It's enjoyable (if you look past the numerous plot holes) and it never gets boring. I just feel that if a little more thought had gone into the script and they'd cut out a couple of the OTT cheesy action scenes, this could have been great. It's still worth watching, but fans of the first film are bound to be a little disappointed.