Die Hard 2 (1990)
One year after his heroics in Los Angeles, John McClane is an off-duty cop who is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a snowy Christmas Eve, as he waits for his wife's plane to land at Washington Dulles International Airport, terrorists take over the air traffic control system in a plot to free a South American army general and drug smuggler being flown into the US to face drug charges. It's now up to McClane to take on the terrorists, while coping with an inept airport police chief, an uncooperative anti-terrorist squad, and the life of his wife and everyone else trapped in planes circling overhead.
- Renny Harlin
- Susana Preston
- Annette Haywood-Carter
- Charlie Picerni
- Doug Richardson
- Steven E. de Souza
- Walter Wager
Rating: 7/10 by 5792 users
Alternative Title:
Die Hard 2: Die Harder - US
Die hard 2 - 58 minutes pour vivre - BE
Jungla de Cristal 2 - ES
다이 하드 2 - KR
Die Hard 2 - 58 minuti per morire - IT
La jungla de cristal 2: Alerta roja - ES
58 minutes pour vivre - FR
Stirb Langsam 2 - Die Harder - DE
Die Hard - 58 minuti per morire - IT
Die hard 2 - 58 minutes pour vivre - FR
Die Hard 2 - Die Harder - US
Cietais rieksts 2 - LV
Die Hard II - US
ダイ・ハード２ - JP
ダイ・ハード2：1990 - JP
虎膽龍威2 - TW
虎膽龍威2 - HK
Country:
United States of America
Language:
English
Español
Runtime: 02 hour 04 minutes
Budget: $70,000,000
Revenue: $240,031,094
Plot Keyword: helicopter, airport, based on novel or book, ambush, cop, sequel, snow, shootout, terrorism, explosion, church, commando, news reporter, air traffic control, virginia, terrorist plot, snowmobile, action hero, plane crash, christmas eve, tense, airplanes, airport police, rogue military, washington dulles international airport
Great fun re-watching this after checking out the original for the first time. One of the very best filmic franchises out there, to be sure.
I was 10 in 1990, I loved Die Hard, and I hated Die Hard 2. Now I'm 40 and I am rewatching this and.... compared to movies today it is pretty good. If this was made in 2020 it would be a 10 out of 10 star smash blockbusting hit that all of America raves about except the "everything is political all the time crowd." But it didn't, it came out in 1990 and because of that it was a subpar sort of BS action movie that in no way lived up to the first one. The thing is... I'm writing the review in 2020. Today it's a good movie if you compare it to most everything in the theaters today and especially to the new Die Hard movies.
If anyone were ever to need to write a training manual for terrorists that demonstrated how to maximise the chaos and destruction at a facility; then they could do a great deal worse than engage the services of Bruce Willis. In this cracking action adventure film, he is "Lt. John McClane" who finds himself amidst a hijacking - but this time it's not the plane that's being hijacked, it's the whole airport - and all so a drug-dealing general can escape justice with the help of some rogue highly trained military types. Willis has bags of charisma, and he needs it as he has to persuade sceptical authorities and other cops of the critical risk - and all before an incoming flight carrying his wife (with quite a fun little sub-plot of it's own) runs out of fuel. The dialogue is sometimes quite pithy, and Tom Bower is fine as "Marvin" (the janitor who gets roped in too). It does lack menace, maybe Willis' style of characterisation is just a bit too laid back; the smile and the glint - but it's still an end to end action thriller with plenty of pyrotechnics and near misses to fill a couple of hours in a world of mindless cinema. It's not quite as good at the first one, but there's not that much to it.
