DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: McClane is back, picking his wife up at
the airport and foiling a plot by mercenaries to free a
Noriega-like dictator. Much in the mold of a James Bond
film, DIE HARD 2 has some good suspense, good action, nice
visuals, and minorities in good roles that did not
necessarily call for minorities. McClane is not as creative
as in DIE HARD, but his powers of deduction are tested just
as much. Rating: high +1.
This year there is no James Bond film, in fact, but there is a reasonable substitute. There is no film about British superspy James Bond being sent out to save England, but there is a film about L.A. supercop John McClane sending himself out to pick up his wife from Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. McClane is played by Bruce Willis who is my idea of no actor, but in films such as this can be a reasonable substitute. Of course, dealing with an airport during Christmas rush is never easy. McClane has to deal with airport police who ticket him for parking in a no-parking zone and with a bunch of Army-bred mercenaries who are trying to free Manuel Noriega (thinly disguised under the character name Esperanza). DIE HARD 2 is the story of how McClane gets the airport police to tear up the parking ticket and how he picks up his wife on a night when Dulles is not at its dullest. I will not say exactly how McClane gets the ticket torn up but it involves killing a bunch of "bad guys" and saving a lot of "good guys" (to use his sophisticated jargon). It also involves him being just about the only guy with intelligence and pluck in an airport full of and run by jerks.
DIE HARD 2 *is* a big beefy action film much in the style of a James Bond film. It follows the time-honored traditions of Bond films, like all the luck working for the hero. McClane makes no false moves while trained commandos make mistakes such as running out of ammunition without realizing it. Eight bad guys can be having a showdown with McClane but they will very obligingly attack one at a time so McClane can pick them off like Horatio at the Bridge. Later, when there is one piece of equipment that McClane really needs it just sort of falls into his hands, no muss, no fuss. That is not to say there is not a whole lot of mussing and fussing in the film. But McClane is the sort of hero who can go through a trash compactor, wince and maybe bleed a little to remind the audience that it is painful to be compacted, and five minutes later he is back to normal. His bones must be made of the stuff they built Patton tanks from (or perhaps should build them from).
There are a number of reasons the plot could not really proceed as it does. McClane gets an identification on a character based on fingerprints that he faxes from a car rental stand. Even assuming he could coerce the car rental agency to do his faxing, it is very unlikely the print at the other end would have anything but black blotches. But I guess part of the fun of seeing a film like this is picking holes in the screenplay, which in this case was written by Doug Richardson and Steven de Souza. The latter wrote 48 HOURS and here is adapting 58 MINUTES, the novel by Walter Wager on which DIE HARD 2 is based.
Visual effects are impressive and provided by Industrial Light and Magic. One very nice shot involves McClane sort of flying away from an explosion but toward the camera. The musical score is by Michael Kamen. Rare is the film review that has a spoiler warning for a comment about the musical score, but this one does. Jump to the next paragraph if you wish to avoid it. Through the film Kamen often uses a theme for the villains that sounds just like the first eight notes of Sibelius's "Finlandia." Well, I had always thought they did sound ominous, but was it coincidence or was Kamen really quoting? Sibelius's tribute to Finland has, after all, little to do with the story at hand. Then in the final suspense scene the orchestra finally breaks out into a big chunk of "Finlandia." The end credits then are a full orchestral performance of "Finlandia." It sounds mighty good in Dolby Surroundsound. That's worth fifty cents of the admission price all by itself.
This is an enjoyable action film: nothing requiring great thought, but certainly enjoyable. I would give it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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