Were You Expecting the Original?

Rating: 6/10 (7 March 2003)

Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Continuing the events in the life of John McClane, `Die Hard 2: Die Harder' features a band of terrorists taking over Dulles Airport. And yippee-kai-yay, look who's here. John McClane! And guess who is the only man who can stop the terrorists? John McClane! And guess whose wife is on a plane that can't land at Dulles until the terrorists get what they want? Yep! John McClane!
Enter John McClane, who must find a way to take out all the terrorists before it's too late. Using his Zippo lighter and a pistol, he gets to take down about nine thousand baddies. Wow. Good marketing for Zippo: `Not only can it stop a bullet.it can ACT like a bullet, too!'
People were hard on this movie when it came out. And I can certainly understand why. Anything the makers of the first film should have learned is that their formula worked before. One man. Trapped in a building. Hostages. Let's film! But in part II they ignored all this to deliver some big explosions. Not only is John McClane NOT in an enclosed area (unless you count a huge airport as enclosed), and not only do they have an un-loathed bad guy (unlike the first where we loved to hate the bad guy), but none of the original formula is there. The film retreats into trampled terrain - `Rambo' terrain. John McClane is no loner an intelligent and sympathetic character. He's a lean, mean, fighting machine that blows up everything in his path.
But then again, considering it as an action film and not a sequel to one of the best of its genre, the film ain't all that bad.
There ARE some great explosions, including McClane getting trapped in a jet fighter and bad guys throwing grenades in. What to do? Why, launch the ejection seat, of course. Next thing we see is ol' John sailing through the air, saying, `Oh Sh-------!'
And the very end is nothing short of adrenaline-pumped, pyrotechnic action spectacular. The Zippo lighter comes in handy yet once again for John. KABOOM!
All in all, `DH2: Die Harder' is definitely worth seeing. It's not worth going out of your way to see, but it's worth it if you can find it. Just don't expect anything near the original.
3.5/5 stars - just for that ending. Boy, was it great.
BTW: Look out for `Die Hard 4: Die Hardest' coming out in 2004. Really. I mean it. Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are already signed on. Visit IMDb.com for more information on the sequel.
I'm just wondering what the fifth will be called. How about, `Die Hard 5: Die Hard, Harder, and/or Hardest'? Or what about `Die Hard 5: Burn, Baby, Burn.' The possibilites are endless.