An unmissable relic of the superb 1990...

Rating: 10/10 (8 June 2009)

Like any big budget action movie made with a strict summer release deadline,Die Hard 2 is by no means flawless. It is rife with appalling continuity and colossal factual inaccuracy,but to me at least,it is nonetheless one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces in existence and yes,I'm afraid I really do mean that!(meant to be a new paragraph here but IMDb processor won't let me separate it) In Die Hard 2,John Mclane(Bruce Willis) is in Dulles international airport on a snowy Christmas eve,awaiting the arrival of his wife Holly(Bonnie Bedellia) by airplane. Trouble is afoot as a group of terrorists,lead by the Nefarious Colonel Stuart(William Saddler,The Shawshank Redemption),take up position in a nearby church and hack into the airport's control tower,switching off the runway lights. All the incoming planes have no place to land. The terrorists objective is to free a Political prisoner,a deposed dictator of a fictitious Latin American country and a drug-lord,who is on his way to Dulles. The terrorists refuse to release their grip on the airport until they are provided with a fully fueled plane to take them and their drug-lord friend to freedom and threaten to misguide the planes into a fiery demise if the airport authorities try to interfere with their plans. Mclane stumbles upon the bad guys' operation and with hundreds of lives at stake,including that of his wife and with an inept airport police chief that doesn't buy his analysis of the situation,it turns out to be more or less up to Mclane himself to save the day.
In his role as the iconic action hero John Mclane,Bruce Willis shoots and brawls his perilous way through an all out battle against a band of ruthless mercenaries. From a technical standpoint,Die Hard 2 is a breakthrough piece of work that should not be missed by special effects enthusiasts. The standout set pieces include three nail biting plane explosions,one in which you get to see Mclane narrowly escape a plane full of frag grenades just seconds before it explodes by using an ejector seat with a parachute. Also on display is an insane practical stunt in which Bruce Willis actually jumps onto the wing of an airplane from a helicopter,followed by a brutal melee fight and...well I won't spoil it. Last but not least is the amazingly lifelike matte painting at the end of the movie depicting the chaotic emergency landing site of half a dozen jet airliners,filled with ambulances and firetrucks and with hundreds of people seamlessly inserted into the picture. This is one state of the art effects movie,even more so considering the time it was made.
The many supporting characters of Die Hard 2 are effectively brought to life thanks to good casting and dialog. Perhaps most worthy of mention is the slimy,selfish TV news reporter Dick Thornburg)William Atherton, Ghostbusters) who returns from the first Die Hard movie only to show us that he is still entirely lacking any morals or decency. Another positive performance is that of John Amos as the no nonsense,battle hardened leader of the Army Special Forces team sent in to bring down the bad guys.
After the first Die Hard became a substantial hit in 1988,fans were expecting the sequel to be just as violent and adult orientated, so the creators of Die Hard 2 comfortably threw in a few particularly nasty death scenes here and there. It's not just people getting shot this time around. Die Hard 2 is certainly a more mean spirited movie than it's predecessor.
As the plot of the movie unfolds,each revelation leads to a new deadly action scenario. The middle of the film is very dark and and sobering and things really do keep getting worse from then on until the time comes for Mclane's joyfully absurd final showdown with the baddies. While it's pretty obvious by now that the film ends victoriously for good guys,the crisis is not solved en masse like many other such films. More cleverly, the loose ends fall into place one by one,which triples the suspense and relief.
Most movie enthusiasts with good knowledge of the genre would probably agree that the 80s and 90s were the golden years of action cinema. Things just aren't the way they used to be nowadays. The PG-13 rating has defaced the Alien, Predator, Die Hard and now the Terminator series. If you don't mind it that way then good for you. Your majority held opinion is in control of the movie industry,but if like me you prefer to have your blood and your F words,your in for one damn good treat if you've not seen Die Hard 2.