Die Hard 2 Review

Renny Harlin reproduced the shape of the first film without understanding what held it together. Dulles should work as a setting, but it never becomes a map the way Nakatomi did, so the pursuits through baggage handling and out onto the runways read as unrelated locations rather than one structure being fought through. The plot is the larger problem.

It asks you to accept the same man stumbling into the same siege at Christmas twice, then builds around a mercenary team whose blank ammunition trick is telegraphed an hour early and whose plan requires an implausible volume of institutional incompetence. William Sadler is a physically imposing Stuart and the naked tai chi introduction is a strange, memorable choice, but he has none of the wit that made Gruber worth beating, and the film keeps cutting away to a control tower full of men explaining the stakes to each other.

Willis is still good company, best when he is irritated rather than heroic. Oliver Wood shoots the snow beautifully and the ejection seat escape carries real weight. The closing image, a mile of ignited jet fuel lighting a runway, is the most enjoyable thing here and also the moment the series first chose spectacle over sense.