Big, dumb, fun action flick tries hard (or dies hard) to entertain

Rating: 7/10 (12 October 2017)

RELEASED IN 1990, " Die Hard 2: Die Harder" is the second of (currently) five installments in the Die Hard series. The story takes place at Dulles Airport in D.C. as John McClane (Bruce Willis) attempts to avert disaster when rogue military operatives seize control of the airport with plans to rescue a drug lord from justice (Franco Nero). Meanwhile McClane's wife (Bonnie Bedelia) is stuck in the air circling the airport with her nemesis from the previous film (William Atherton). Dennis Franz plays the head cop (with an attitude) at the airport while William Sadler plays the lead terrorist. John Amos appears as the head commando while Art Evans is on hand as a reasonable cop and Tom Bower as a helpful janitor.
The Die Hard flicks fill the bill if you're in the mood for a big, dumb, fun action flick. Don't get me wrong because a lot of work goes into making these kinds of films and it takes talent & genius to pull them off. I mean "dumb" in the sense that the focus is on unbelievable thrills rather than character defining drama or deep themes beyond "genuinely good people may be flawed and somewhat profane, but they're courageous and never give up in the face of evil."
The story isn't as engaging as 2007's "Live Free or Die Hard," but it was good enough and the action scenes are out of this world. They're so over-the-top (with obvious plot holes) that you could write the movie off as absurd, but everything's done with a quasi-realistic tone so it helps the viewer go along with the ridiculous things that happen rather than tune out.
The Die Hard flicks are the natural progeny of over-the-top films like 1977's "The Gauntlet" where the action scenes are so overdone they're cartoony, but entertaining. There's a thin line that filmmakers must tread with these kinds of blockbusters because they can easily fall into overKILL, like 2001's "The Mummy Returns." Thankfully, "Die Hard 2" pretty much evades that ditch by giving us entertaining characters and a relatively compelling story.
THE MOVIE RUNS 124 minutes and was shot in Colorado, Michigan and California. WRITERS: Steven E. de Souza & Doug Richardson wrote the script based on Walter Wager's novel.
GRADE: B