Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) Film 44/50

Would you believe me if I told you I had never seen Die Hard 2 before this morning? I know! Me Neither! But here we are.

Somehow I'd seen Die Hard and Die Hard: With a Vengeance AND Live Free or Die Hard but skipped over the second installment of this soon-to-be quintology (which may even turn into a sextology...assuming that is indeed the term for a series of six and not going to result in some very disappointed Google searches). It was thanks to a recent conversation regarding the theme of "Christmas" movies that brought this missing link to light for me. Someone mentioned it taking place at an airport, and since I had no recollection of seeing John McClane duke it out against terrorists under a plane, I felt the need to remedy this oversight on my part. And so concludes "The Story of My Life Prior to Seeing Die Hard 2."

Onward to the review.

So here we meet up again with everyone's favorite "wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time." This time, he's trapped at Dulles International Airport waiting for his wife's plane to arrive so he can enjoy Christmas with her and their kids (currently off-screen being baby-sat by the in-laws). See? It's a Christmas movie. Being John McClane, he notices some not-so-savory characters partaking in some questionable activities, which ultimately lead him to killing a terrorist with a baggage claim mechanism. Merry Christmas!

Up in the friendly-but-flurried-filled skies of D.C., Bonnie Bedelia is seated next to a woman with a taser in her purse (the T.S.A. used to be WAY too lenient) and a row over from Hollywood's resident dick-less jackass, Walter Peck. Turns out he has a restraining order against Mrs. McClane for the punch she landed at the end of the first film. The stewardesses really like her for that and keep pouring her champagne as the plane circles the city waiting to land.

And why can't they land? Why, because a nut-job U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Stuart has taken control of Dulles and is threatening to crash lots and lots o' planes unless nobody interferes with his plans to bring a notorious drug dealer safely to the ground. It's like the plot of The Rock...except not at all.

And because we all love Bruce Willis, we sit back and watch him crawl up elevator shafts and through ventilation ducts cracking wise at the fact that we are all once again watching him do this on Christmas Eve.  Not to mention pissing off airport security and the bad guys as he goes.

Because this movie is 22 years old (hell, McClane is legally smoking inside the airport at one point...how times have changed) PLUS the fact that the existence of two (soon-to-be three) sequels gives away McClane's success over the bad guys, I won't go into too much detail with the various plot points of this film. But I will say this: William Sadler! Damn, you are one muscular dude. I had no idea. You're always playing some fully clad, buddy sidekick of a fella in the movies I've seen you in (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile). That or playing some fully clad, bureaucratic jerk (Project X...the 1987 one with Ferris Bueller and the monkey, as opposed to the more recent party film the kids were all flocking to back in March). So glad the producers of this fine piece of cinematic action adventury chose to have you exercise in the nude for us all back in the beginning of this film. That was truly delightful. And I thought Jeremy Irons shoulder blades and sunglasses were hot in the third film.

On the whole, I enjoyed this film. Sure, it had its moments of lameness (mostly when Willis is talking to himself in ventilation shafts), and the terrorists were not nearly as fun as the Gruber brothers (sorry Sadler...you've got great abs, but the whole "release-a-dictatory-druglord-because-why-not" plot was a bit much...just give me good ol' fashioned, brotherly euro-greed any day). If I were to rank the four existing films in order of favorite to least favorite, the list would go like this: Vengeance, closely followed by the original, followed closely-but-not-quite-as-closely by this one, and then tagging along in the distance like an annoying-but-genetically-and-cinematically-binding-daughter would be the fourth.

I'm hyphen-happy today.

For the record, I can't wait to see the fifth movie. Rumor has it that Patrick Stewart will be at the receiving end of McClane's patented "Yippie-kai-yay, motherfucker" this time. Yep. I'll pay the price of admission to see that.

Also for the record, the original Die Hard makes my "Top Ten Christmas Movie" list but not this one (bringing us back to the conversation that launched a thousand ships, or rather, nearly a thousand word review). For those of you curious as to that list, well, consider this an early Christmas present:

10. Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
9. Die Hard (1990)
8. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
7. Home Alone (1990)
6. Scrooged (1988)
5. Elf (2003)
4. Love Actually (2003)
3. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
2. The Ref (1994)
1. A Christmas Story (1983)

But you probably could have predicted that list, right?