Die Hard 2 (1990) Dir: Renny Harlin
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I've watched the original film in this franchise a number of times, but, until now, I've never bothered with the sequels. I guess they didn't interest me all that much before, but now seemed as good a time as any to watch them. Renny Harlin's 1990 sequel has reasonable enough reviews, which at least told me it should be a decent use of my evening.
The first think I noticed was honestly how unrecognisably lax the airport security of the 90's was. I had to suspend my disbelief a lot more than I had anticipated I'd already need to, purely because of how easy it was to get through security. It honestly made me laugh a lot.
I enjoyed the use of models and physical effects, which was certainly endearing, even though some of the planes did look very obviously fake. The other thing that was slightly annoying, if also a little funny, was that people would fire at least a dozen shots, but the target would end up with one, maybe two bullet wounds.
The story was definitely weaker than the classic scenario that the first film utilised so well, but it had its moments. I think it all felt a lot looser this time around, which didn't help. Furthermore, a lot of the events were a lot more over-the-top and borderline silly, which definitely made it harder to take the film seriously.
Bruce Willis gave a reasonable, if not exceptional performance. It kinda felt like there wasn't much for his character to do beyond be the action hero. There was no development. What's more, some of the quips and one-liners were a little weak.
William Sadler's villain really suffers in the wake of Alan Rickman's epic performance in the prior film. By contrast, he feels like a forgettable charisma vacuum. He was so boring to watch, with the only entertaining part of his performance being when he changed accents briefly and it was terrible.
Bonnie Bedelia and Art Evans gave fairly good supporting performances, although they kind of felt a little forgotten about at times. Bedelia at least was enjoyable to watch, especially when showing her quick wit. Evans kinda felt like somewhat of an afterthought, for the most part - given the sidekick role when necessary.
Both Dennis Franz and William Atherton provided relatively adequate performances in their supporting roles, whilst the likes of John Amos, Fred Thompson, Tom Bower, Franco Nero, Sheila McCarthy and Reginald Veljohnson were a little forgettable, in truth.
Overall, I'd say this is a solid action film for an evening's entertainment, but I'd rather choose the original over this any day. It comes across like a bit of a cash grab sequel, which, ironically enough, is typified by Willis' titular protagonist asking how the same thing can happen to the same guy twice. It's a bit entertaining and a bit mediocre, rather middling all-in-all.
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