What the...?

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2005)

Die Hard 2 (aka Die Hard 2: Die Harder) follows John McClane (Bruce Willis) who arrives at Dulles Airport to pick up his wife for the Christmas holidays. But, being a Die Hard movie, some terrorists take over the Airport's traffic control system and hold all the inbound flights "hostage"... There is only McClane (and the Airport cops, and the army) to put a stop to the terrorists.
This movie is fairly dumb. There are soooo much implausibility and a tonne of plot holes:
1. McClane arrives a few hours early to pick up his wife at the airport. I mean - who goes and picks up their loved ones from an airport a couple of hours early?! Probably only the stupid and lonely....
2. The fact that the old granny smuggled a cattle prod on the flight is pretty silly (unless pre-9/11 they didn't check for weapons on flights?).
3. You see terrorists getting nasty with the luggage area of the airport - but what does this have to do with taking over the airport's traffic control system?
4. If the British Plane thought that the ground was in fact 200 yards higher than in reality - shouldn't it have crashed before the runway?
5. The total implausibility of McClane and his wife getting caught up together with terrorists again - plus the fact that the obnoxious news presenter from the first film is, not only in this film, but travelling on the same flight with Holly McClane on Christmas Eve with his camera man in tow. Why would a reporter from LA be flying on Christmas Eve to DC with a camera man?!
6. The stupidity of the police who don't bother to check the immediate area to find out where the terrorists were hiding.
7. Why couldn't all the planes hovering over Dulles just fly somewhere else (it isn't like Washington DC is in the middle of nowhere)?
8. Holly McClane mentions that she was on a 5 and a half hour flight from LA to Dulles - but it only takes less than 4 and 3/4 hours.... duh!
9. The bunch of terrorists dressed up as painters in the annex - what do they have to do with anything except for the excuse of having a gun battle with the SWAT team?
10. The rental car woman that tries to pick up Bruce Willis - clearly he is old enough to be her father and it is sick. Plus she was mega-peeved when Bruce stole her stamp pad and paper - but when he gets back - she gets all flirty.
11. The reporter who sneaks into the control tower... what the? Security?!
12. The polite service on a British carrier??! Not in this universe.
13. Bruce Willis manages to call his wife on the plane phone. I'm not sure how that works...? Speaking of phones - the reporter appears to go to a "pay phone" near the toilets of the plane.... I've never seen those?
I'm sure just about everything single bit of this movie has some sort of plot hole or implausibilies. But if you switch off your brain - it ain't a half bad dumb action film. Just not up to the standard of the first one.