Yippee... you know the rest
Die Hard 2 DVD
Once again John McClane deals with terrorists at Christmas time; once again McClane is forced to crawl through ventilation shafts muttering to himself; once again McClane climbs up and out of elevators; once again no one's going to take the threat seriously but McClane. And once again, McClane gets to drop everyone's favorite line: "Yippi ki-yay, motherf----r."
To make things worse, the film itself, adapted from the novel "58 Minutes" by Walter Wager, is unrealistic nearly to the point of ridiculousness. McClane dodges bullets and chases villains on snowmobiles like Roger Moore's James Bond. What made McClane so appealing in the original film was the fact that he was an everyman, not the unbeatable hero he would seem in "Die Hard 2," were he not saved by a down-to-earth performance from Willis. There are points at which scoffing is inevitable. That's not helped by William Sadler's villain, who pales in comparison with Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber...
How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?
The makers of Die Hard 2, hoped to surpass the success of the original Die Hard. While the second film may feature action on a larger scale, the plot does not draw the audience into the story in the same way the first Die Hard did. Director and action movie specialist, Renny Harlin, is only partially successful at creating and sustaining a high level of suspense and excitement, working with a script that could have been stood a bit more polish.
Once again police officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) gets into some heavy-duty action on Christmas Eve. This time it's at Dulles Airport, in Washington, where terrorists have taken control and seek the release of a foreign general. McClane is suddenly in the middle of the action, seeking to foil the plot and also save his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), who is a passenger on a circling plane, in danger of running out of fuel.
Die Hard 2, is a very different film from Die Hard. Some of the elements most critical to the success of the...
Die Hard and Die Hard 2
Die Hard began a subgenre in action films (as well as Bruce Willis' career as an action star)--that of the lone hero, a sort of cowboy for the modern era. Films like Under Siege ("Die Hard on a boat") and Passenger 57 ("Die Hard on a plane") are example of substandard entries that soon followed. What they missed is that Die Hard is a good film on its own.
John McClane (Bruce Willis) is a New York cop transplanted to Los Angeles when his wife gets a job with the Nakatomi Corporation. When terrorists take over the building during a Christmas party, it's up to John to save the day. Alan Rickman gives an excellent performance as lead terrorist Hans Gruber but it's Willis that carries the film with his wisecracks, catchphrases, and charisma.
Inevitably, there would be a sequel and we should consider ourselves lucky that it was Die Hard 2. Subtitled "Die Harder," it was actually based on an unrelated novel (58 Minutes by Walter Wager) that was then geared to fit the McClane character...
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