Aahhhh...the good old days when action movies weren’t over-digitized unrealistic crap. I know I’m sounding old and a bit boring (I’m only in my 40’s!) but I like watching REAL men do REAL (or realistic) stunts. In other words, moving in ways that are actually plausible for a human being in a similar situation... not like some of the more recent movies that look more like video games!!! The early 90’s seemed to be some of the last of this more authentic action. Also the actual visual experience of the less digitized movies then just seems more real to me.

I won’t necessarily waste time reviewing the plot other than to say I’m maybe one of the few who loves this movie as much as the original. Bruce And Bonnie were great as always, and it was nice seeing Al again (although briefly), but I enjoyed the rest of the cast as well. Dennis Franz (pre- NYPD BLUE) played off Bruce Willis and it kept me laughing. I still use, and think of some of their banter today! And of course the very missed Fred Thompson, RIP. Also, even though they were the bad guys, I thought John Amos And William Sadler did excellent work too. Even the blonde newscaster lady was (unintentionally) funny at times, and Art Evans as the tower engineer Leslie Barnes. And I’m glad William Atherton rejoined again as the proverbial unethical newsman jackass who will do anything for a story and who didn’t love Marvin, the janitor in the basement jamming the 1940’s tunes? 😁

Needless to say, I thought Die Hard 2 had a good mix of humor AND action. And I liked that they stuck with the Christmas season and being in Washington D.C. instead of L.A., the snow added a nice ambience. One of my favorite action sequences was the snowmobiles, because, well, I love to sled!!!

Many sequels never touch the first but IMO, for me, this one is just as good. If you haven’t seen it, get it. You won’t be sorry.
“...What do you need...a slide rule to figure this out???...” —J. McClane

We don't care in our family about the wildly silly premise that a single man can run miles under an airport without shoes, having fallen from the stairs during a grenade explosion and a ton of flashbangs and machine gun fire. These movies are all pure fun. Good guy always wins, and that's what we want.

Die Hard got it right because it made sense, the villain was fun and beautifully played by Alan Rickman, and there were good stakes throughout. But even with the first one there were problems that should have been addressed - some terrible casting choices and the stupidity and unbelievability of the Hart Bochner character - not anything that ruins the movie completely, but just unnecessary to be that silly. The first one took the time to set the story in motion and tell you what you needed to know BEFORE any action began.

But, as with most idiotic sequels, they hire an inept director (Renny Harlin) and basically do everything wrong. The villains are inane and cliched, the script is strictly from hunger, the endless coincidences that are unbelievably stupid (William Atherton being on the flight with the wife - come on) - well, none of it works at all save for Mr. Willis and Ms. Bedelia, who are fine. Somehow, I'd avoided the sequels until now, but I've made it my mission to endure them all. Pray for Rosemary's baby, baby, because I'm sure each successive one is worse.

Die Hard was such a hit they had to turn it into a franchise. So what did they do? They just remade the original. In the first movie he goes to Los Angeles on Christmas, now he’s in Washington D.C. for the holidays. In the original he’s running around inside a skyscraper. Here he’s running around an airport. In both movies the head police officer is a jerk. Reporter Dick Thornburg is back again as well exploiting the situation for his own fame and making things worse. This time the bad guys are a bunch of ex-soldiers trying to free a Latin American dictator from being delivered to U.S. officials for being a drug lord. Seeing as it’s a sequel they also didn’t waste any time on the story as John McClane (Bruce Willis) is shooting at people within 10 minutes of the start. Despite the limitations of the script the movie is still a fun action movie. In fact, the film is good despite the story.
C

If you can forgive the plethora of plot holes then I guess it's a decent movie. But the hole thing about hijacking the airport systems and the planes crashing if they don't land at this one-of-many airports in the area is just nonsense. This glaring problem completely ruined the movie for me. How dumb do they think is their audience? It's insulting!! Plus the plot is so similar to the original. The studio was just trying to cash in on the popularity of Die Hard. Actually, I have no problem with that. But why couldn't they have tried to make a good movie? I don't get it. But I think it really must be their complete disdain for their fans.

If Die Hard 1 was the ultimate Christmas movie, this is a close second. The timeline is one year after the original film. And, it has several of the same characters and the plot points are similar. However, it does have some twists that will keep you guessing. The Glock was a new, unknown weapon at the time this was made. They refer to it in the film as being made of porcelain, undetectable in a screening device and very expensive. None of that is really true but the undetectable part was a big controversy in Glock's early days. Kind of funny if you know a bit about the history of Glock fireams...

I saw this film in the theatre the first time around, back in 1990. I was in my early 20's, and absolutely loved it. Watching the re-wind as a 50ish year old man, I still enjoyed it, BUT I simply can't be that naive, anymore.

There were at least a dozen different circumstances that were simply too impossible to ignore, but for me, the biggest one by far was when Bruce Willis (McClain) used an EJECTION SEAT to escape the grounded C-17 or C130 aircraft, after the bad guys lobbed grenades into the cockpit. HINT: Neither the C-17 or the C-130 could ever possibly support ejection seats. Only 1-seater or 2-seater aircraft have the required detachable, exploding canopy, which allows for an ejection seat to function. This was a cargo plane. (Completely impossible. McClain should have died, right there.)

I always like this movie as a cool but typical aly flawed Action movie. It's fun. But I seem to have picked up Another Goof that was missed in the Trivia. Just after the annex Skywalk SWAT Team disaster, McClane picks up one of the terrorists walkie-talkies and he clearly hears a terrorists voice talking on it, but then he is talking Barnes that we need some access code to hear what the terrorists are saying? What? McClane also rants on the same radio to insult terrorists Stuart!? What access code is needed? Seems working alright? Maybe I fail to understand something?