...Ki.... (Die Hard 2 (Special Edition, DVD))

Member Name: Seres

Product:	Die Hard 2 (Special Edition, DVD)
Date:	29/02/08 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Big action, big - talking, big . . . . Bruce Willis

Disadvantages: Hammy, cheesy, could still do with a few more explosions

Die Hard 2: Die Harder follows on a few years after the events of the first film, when John McClane managed to get out of the Nakatomi plaza alive, with his wife in tow. This time round, husband and wife are getting along better (surprising what a near-death experience can do for you), and John is feeling carefully optimistic about everything. This Christmas, his wife is coming to him, and he goes to the airport to meet her. And then.. well, another situation develops.
Die Hard 2 is essentially Die Hard in an airport, with many of the elements from the first film returning - wife in peril, unhelpful police, terrorists at Christmas - but none are really pulled off as well. This time round, the terrorists want the release of an infamous prisoner, and have taken over the guidance systems for the planes at the airport. And if they don't get what they want, they will con the planes into thinking the ground is further away than it is, thus causing them to crash into the ground. It's sinister, and dastardly, and John McClane is the only one who can stop it!

Die Hard 2 takes the cheesiness to a whole new level, in part probably because Renny Harlin is directing, a man who is now well known for making big-cheese numbers such as Cliffhanger and Deep Blue Sea. And while the film is still highly enjoyable, there seems to be something missing from the whole enterprise. Bruce Willis returns as McClane, and continues to flesh out his character. He has to deal with a lot in this film, including another air vent, and a whole army of various villains. He's hilarious, and as blackly comic as ever - he squishes one guy in a luggage conveyor - but this time round he doesn't have anyone to face off against. Hans Gruber is a mere memory, and there are no memorable villains in the movie. William Sadler plays the man who is meant to be the main baddie, but he doesn't hold any screen presence in the film (he's gone on to be better in other films, I should add) and ultimately this means John is facing an army of unrecognisable foes. One person you should look out for however is Robert Patrick, B-actor supreme (he was the evil terminator in the second film of that series) who appears in a short cameo, gets shot, and can now boast to have been killed onscreen by all three founders of Planet Hollywood (Bruce Sly Stallone and Arnie being the culprits). It's a shame he couldn't have been the villain, because he's bad-ass.
Bonnie Bedelia is stuck for the whole film on a plane, along with eternally slimy reporter William Atherton, also back from the first film. She spends most of her time looking worried or making snide remarks about Atherton to the hostesses, and any time devoted to the plane is dull and annoying. The audience is expected to want her plane to survive more than the other planes, which is a pretty harsh thing to expect of us. One of the other planes is crashed as an example to the cops not to mess with the terrorists, and 200 people are killed in one swift move. It's brutal, but it's not handled in the same manner that death was in the original, and seems slightly tacky somehow. Still, nasty Dennis Franz is a plucky airport security chief, who annoys McClane at every turn, but is still a fun character to see. There's a kindly janitor who drives John around on his kart, much to John's dismay, and the arrival of an army troop makes things interesting late on.

The movie zips along at a decent pace, and every scene with McClane is entertaining. The plot works, for the most part, although it's a little twisty and complicated, until the last section of the movie. For me, and I think many will agree, the ending seems rushed and a little too easy. I wanted to see McClane take on the villains hand-to-hand, but instead we're cheated of that. He does get to say Yippee Ki Yay again, mind, so it's not all bad.
Die Hard 2 is an expansive film. The sets are absolutely massive, and the gunfights and combat sequences are handled well. McClane receives several allies in the movie, and this means we get banter. Yay! Banter. Nobody handles this kind of desperate annoyance like Bruce Willis does, and he owns this film. Every facial expression or click of the tongue is fantastic. He's managed to make for himself a persona which should seem OTT but in fact just seems uber-realistic. It's impressive. For all of Willis' effort, however, the film remains a poor cousin to the original. It's fun, don't get me wrong, but it just feels ever so simply like a let-down after the original.

Summary: Explosions, airport