Die Hard 2 (1990) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Renny Harlin

Starring: Bruce Willis, William Sadler, John Amos, Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton, Dennis Franz, Fred Dalton Thompson. Art Evans

Despite that I gave Die Hard (1988) three and half stars and this sequel the same star rating, I feel Die Hard 2 is the best of the series.     It is a relentless action thriller, starring Bruce Willis once again as the undaunted John McLane, who is bloodied and beaten, but refuses to surrender.    When he finally destroys the villains in a spectacular sequence, he screams and laughs in heroic glee.    John McLane 2, Terrorists 0.    Three more Die Hard films would add to McLane's win total and body count.

I don't think I gave away a spoiler that McLane was successful in his fight against an American terrorist group of former black ops specialists.   No Communists or foreigners, unless you count the dictator for which the group hijacks Dulles Airport in order to rescue him from justice.   These smug, smart, and dangerous baddies were homegrown here in the good old U.S. of A.   They're led by Col. Stuart (Sadler), a lean, mean fighting machine with zero qualms about altering sea level via a computer to crash a plane on purpose.   McLane's wife Holly (Bedelia) is once again in danger, as her plane is one of many that are, in effect, hostages when Stuart takes over the airport.   

Stuart, via a remote computer system, is able to shut down Dulles' air traffic control tower and render it virtually deaf and mute.   The tower can not communicate with the planes and vice versa.   His mission is to hijack the plane carrying a Latin American dictator being flown in to stand trial on drug charges (a la Manuel Noriega).   Is such a thing possible?   Maybe not, but who cares anyway?    It's a great setup furthered by even more thrilling action.    McLane, like in the previous Die Hard, is outnumbered and outgunned, but continues winning.    He becomes more than a thorn in the side of the terrorists, who didn't expect him to be on the scene.   

Willis is likable and credible.   He isn't blessed with a Schwarzenegger-like physique and when he is pricked, he does bleed.    What he lacks in physicality, he makes up for in intelligence and spirit.    We don't expect Arnold to lose against anyone in a fight.    We find ourselves pleasantly surprised to see John McLane rid the world of another baddie after a fistfight or a gun battle.

Sadler is not as smooth and cultured as Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber from the first film, but he is every bit as ruthless.    He is the type of guy we would be very surprised to see John McLane defeat mano y mano.    McLane doesn't, but he finds another way to beat him.   Somehow, the stakes seem higher and the tension a bit more ratcheted up in this sequel.     There are many moving parts in play, and director Renny Harlin makes sense of it all.    We know who is doing what and why.    

Die Hard 2 is twenty-five years old now, but is still fresh.    Action thrillers these days don't take the time to work on the suspense that should accompany all thrillers.    We see lots of bullets, blood, gore, and broken limbs, but why should we care about guys like John Wick or Ethan Hunt?    Sadly, John McLane himself entered this territory in the last Die Hard.    This is sad.    We root for John McLane because of his tenacity and grit, not because he is an indestructible robot.     Movies like Die Hard 2 remind us of that.