A few words about the staying power of ‘Die Hard 2’
The forgotten sequel stands up pretty strong today.
Lost among the endless discussion about the factors that prove Die Hard is (or isn’t) a Christmas movie is the potency of its direct sequel, the aptly named Die Hard 2. Ah, to live in a land of easy sequel names again instead of the current landscape that prefers hidden world-building codes in its wording. In 1990, it was about upping the ante and keeping things fun while stacking a franchise one movie at a time.
Releasing two years after the mega hit that spawned a thousand one-man army action adventures (45 of which starred Bruce Willis), the Washington D.C. set part two places John McClane in a crowded airport on… wait for it, Christmas! People of all walks of life packed into a single brick and mortar that’s about to be taken over by a corrupt Colonel (a buff William Sadler) makes for a fine McClane savior dish, and the thrills haven’t expired 34 years later.
The movie wastes little time getting its legs moving, dropping a Christmas reference within two minutes and placing the characters inside the powder keg of danger with just the right amount of theatrics attached: McClane’s wife’s airplane stuck in the air along with hundreds of other planes with air traffic control being shut down by the mad Colonel and his highly trained team of mercenaries. Once again in the worst place at the wrong (right tho?) time, the newly minted Los Angeles cop is the irregular cog that sits as the biggest thorn in the side of a super bad guy.
Planes flying blind, a bunch of war torn criminals on the loose, a ball-busting chief of airport police there to make the hero sweat extra, and one man who can stop it all. The perfect recipe for a fast moving action delight that supplies just as many one liner winners as the original. While McClane jumping off the Nakatomi Plaza roof with a fire hose wrapped around his waist is the gift that keeps on giving with each viewing, seeing him blast out of an exploding plane into the snowy winter air is a fist bump moment in its own league of 80s/90s visual pleasures.
Willis is a maverick in the lead role, continuing to prove audiences wrong by doing it again—as in what audiences and even his own bosses didn’t think he could do with the first film. Settling into the persona even deeper, he supplies the comic relief and the hero work, making it all look easy and natural. Being the anti-thesis to the muscular action guys has its rewards: McClane doesn’t have to win the fight with the ultimate baddie… as long as he hung a bag of grenades on the wing of the plane before being kicked off the moving aircraft.
Die Hard 2 delivered from cover to cover, never losing steam or balance in its 124 minute runtime. The setup doesn’t take long to get moving, and the whole cast buys in, all the way down to John Amos as the possible hardass/goodish bad guy who fooled us the first time. Sadler proves that naked Tai Chi is best filmed in the shadows, and that old guys at rundown churches outside airport runway won’t see another Christmas.
Unlike the first film, more than a handful of civilians die in the Colonel’s evil plan, 257 to be near exact. The stakes are raised in a hair-raising scene involving a plane of passengers crashing into the concrete runway. Real world fear, Hollywood action in its true heyday, and a payoff that delivers all the satisfaction one needs from a Willis-ran playbook.
The third one is great and was helped by the fact that Samuel L. Jackson was coming off that Pulp Fiction bump, but the second one always seems to get lost in the fray. It scored critically and grossed $240 million worldwide on a $70 million budget, handling a director swap (John McTiernan to Renny Harlin) without a loss in quality. The dip in quality for the franchise came after the initial trio when Willis went bald and the plots became redundant and sloppy. Watch the last one with Jai Courtney as McClane’s son, and you’ll go running back to that 1988-1995 hot spot.
Last night, I watched Die Hard in a local St. Louis theater for the first time in a few years. The last screening happened at the same theater. It’s become a Christmas tradition to show it on the big screen. If only they would show Die Hard 2 in a theater again.
It’s just as much a holiday film as the first, and plays pretty smooth all these years later. Sadler is no Alan Rickman and there’s a lot less Reginald VelJohnson in Die Hard 2, but it waves the 80s action cinema freak flag quite well.