Die Hard 2 (1990)

For me, 'Die Hard 2 (1991)' is a little disappointing considering it follows one of the best action films of all time. It isn't anywhere near as compelling or fun as the original. Still, it has it's fair share of decent action and it does successfully raise the stakes without making the protagonist a superhero. It's a decent follow-up and an entertaining movie in its own right. 7/10

Two years after the immensely successful Die Hard, John McTiernan, Bruce Willis, and Twentieth Century Fox teamed up to unleash another John McClane adventure onto the world. Many people do not realize this, but twenty years ago sequels were not usually the bigger and better masterpieces that they always seem to be today. Back in the day, a sequel was often times thrown together to make a quick buck and only the biggest movies ever got the budget to live up to the quality that the first one produced. Die Hard 2: Die Harder was given this royal treatment, but despite everything working in its favor, this one fell short of its predescessor. I guess what disappoints me in this one is the guys' unwillingness to do anything different. A good sequel should be bigger and better than the original and add something more to the overall series, something fresh and interesting if you will. Die Hard 2 falls short in this category. This one seems like a simple rehashing of the same story. John McClane gets unwitting caught up in a terrorist attack and he comes through to save the day despite overwhelming odds against him. This one again takes place on Christmas in Washington D.C. instead of L.A. The story really does not give us anything new, nor do we see anything but the same John McClane. Unlike the other three movies in the series, John plays exactly the same person who has not grown at all since the last time we seen him. With that being said, Bruce Willis stills gives creedence to the character that he made famous. Returning from the first movie, Bonnie Bedlia as his wife, Holly, and William Atherton as the arrorgant TV reporter, Richard Thornburg give us a bird's eye view of the terrorist attack from the skies, but that sub plot seemed to drag down the movie a little for me. Good performances were given by Art Evans playing Leslie Barnes and by Republican presidential nominee Fred Thompson as Trudeau, the man running Dulles Airport. However, William Sadler gave a weak performance as the movie's protagonist, and he kind of makes you wish that John McClane had not killed Hans Gruber in the first one. So, Die Hard 2: Die Harder did little to recapture the power that the first in the series seemed to sweat out of ever pour. It was basically the same movie with a slight twist in situation to make it feel fresh. Still, this is a Die Hard movie, and it gives us enough humor and action packed adventure to leave us satisfied after the whole experience is over. Unlike so many sequels that, back in the eighties and early nineties, seemed tired and useless except to bring the overall feel of the first movie down, Die Hard 2: Die Harder is worth the 124 minutes to catch up with an old friend.

RELEASED IN 1990, " Die Hard 2: Die Harder" is the second of (currently) five installments in the Die Hard series. The story takes place at Dulles Airport in D.C. as John McClane (Bruce Willis) attempts to avert disaster when rogue military operatives seize control of the airport with plans to rescue a drug lord from justice (Franco Nero). Meanwhile McClane's wife (Bonnie Bedelia) is stuck in the air circling the airport with her nemesis from the previous film (William Atherton). Dennis Franz plays the head cop (with an attitude) at the airport while William Sadler plays the lead terrorist. John Amos appears as the head commando while Art Evans is on hand as a reasonable cop and Tom Bower as a helpful janitor.The Die Hard flicks fill the bill if you're in the mood for a big, dumb, fun action flick. Don't get me wrong because a lot of work goes into making these kinds of films and it takes talent & genius to pull them off. I mean "dumb" in the sense that the focus is on unbelievable thrills rather than character defining drama or deep themes beyond "genuinely good people may be flawed and somewhat profane, but they're courageous and never give up in the face of evil." The story isn't as engaging as 2007's "Live Free or Die Hard," but it was good enough and the action scenes are out of this world. They're so over-the-top (with obvious plot holes) that you could write the movie off as absurd, but everything's done with a quasi-realistic tone so it helps the viewer go along with the ridiculous things that happen rather than tune out.The Die Hard flicks are the natural progeny of over-the-top films like 1977's "The Gauntlet" where the action scenes are so overdone they're cartoony, but entertaining. There's a thin line that filmmakers must tread with these kinds of blockbusters because they can easily fall into overKILL, like 2001's "The Mummy Returns." Thankfully, "Die Hard 2" pretty much evades that ditch by giving us entertaining characters and a relatively compelling story.THE MOVIE RUNS 124 minutes and was shot in Colorado, Michigan and California. WRITERS: Steven E. de Souza & Doug Richardson wrote the script based on Walter Wager's novel.GRADE: B

It's actually a good sequel, but at the same time, it couldn't live up to the original film, and it's of no surprise because the original film is probably the greatest action movie of all time – most would agree. Still, Die Hard 2 is right up there among the best action films of the 90s (Die Hard was made in the 80s) and everyone knows that the 90s was the time where action films dominated the cinema screens due to the success of Die Hard. What I enjoyed about Die Hard 2 is that it was set inside an airport, and the airport is large and full of people, so it makes it more interesting to follow. The villain wasn't that great, and it's probably one of the main reasons why this film couldn't at least come close to the original. All in all, it's worth watching, but at the same time, you shouldn't expect it to be as good as Die Hard.