mediocre sequel in an otherwise impressive series

Rating: 4/10 (9 November 2007)

This film is horrible. It's a damning indictment of the total lack of imagination and flair in mainstream US cinema now. Almost everything that happens can be termed comic book, from the preposterous invulnerability of the main characters to their lamentable attempts at dialogue. Whatever hint of credible situations occasionally settled into the fabric of the earlier films is replaced now by the most risible, inconceivable denouements. We are used to bad men who can't hit a car with a vast machine gun mounted in a helicopter at near point-blank range, but it's difficult to credit the fact that a little later Bruce Willis launches his car into the air like a guided missile and knocks the helicopter out of the sky! After jumping out of the speeding car he rolls across the highway, gets up, grunts (better than the dialogue to be sure), and starts shooting at the man who miraculously crawls out of the helicopter after it's hit the ground. Well really! And there's no longer any foreplay. The shooting starts almost the instant the film starts and continues at a predictable pace for the next two hours, all carefully doled out to stop morons snoozing after tens minutes without blood and guts. It's terrible entertainment. Humourless, predictable, tension-free, and utterly witless.