The smartest thing Die Hard 2 does is acknowledge how preposterous it is that John McClane has found himself once again involved in a life-or-death situation against a well-armed militia with nefarious plans.
Or as McClane himself puts it: "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?!"
And then later, while inside an air duct: "Just once I'd like a regular normal Christmas. Eggnog. Fucking Christmas tree. A little turkey. But, no, I got to crawl around in this motherfucking tin can!"
Before finally: "Oh, we are just up to our ass in terrorists again, John."
Suffice to say, McClane can't believe his shitty luck. And his exasperation over the fact that this keeps happening to him only adds to the character's frazzled beleaguerment, one of his most enjoyable traits until later sequels removed that element from the cocktail, leaving McClane as a grizzled superman. But in Die Hard 2 he still fully retains his ordinary-guy charms, fighting terrorists not because he can, but because he must. The bad guys have seized control of the Washington Dulles Airport control tower, you see, and John's wife Holly is in one of the planes running out of fuel overhead. McClane would rather be anywhere else right now, but if he can't save Holly, who will?
There are those who would call Die Hard 2 a direct clone of the original, and they would not be wrong. You again have McClane crawling through ventilation ducts during the Christmas season; a well-trained group of terrorists led by a results-oriented leader (William Sadler as Col. Stuart here); an antagonistic relationship between McClane and the fuck-ups in local law enforcement; and the media being unreasonably intrusive and nosy. "Let it Snow" once more plays over the closing credits. Not to mention, many of the same actors from the first film reprise their roles here in various capacities (Willis, Bonny Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, William Atherton). Yet it still seems like the whole Die Hard concept was fresh enough to pull off one more time before Hollywood started up the copycat the machine and the Die Hard franchise was forced to go in different directions starting with With a Vengeance.
There are parts of 2 (or Die Harder, as it is sometimes subtitled) that are grossly quaint now. It makes sense that McClane would be anti-technology, but all the attention paid to beepers, airplane phones, stun guns and fax machines now sticks out like a sore thumb. But there are also a great many things here that sadly go missing in later Die Hard films … such as McClane failing, for one. A big part of the first two Die Hard movies is watching McClane bounce back after things don't go his way. When he unsuccessfully tries to save the doomed airplane that Stuart crashes into the runway, you can see the dejectedness, as well as an increased resolve, on Willis's face. Die Hard movies are more fun when things are hard for McClane. There's a great little bit in Die Hard 2 where he has to struggle fiercely just to prop open a heavy metal grate embedded in a runway. (You'd never see Schwarzenegger have trouble with something like that.) And I love that McClane takes joy in the simple victories. Finding a walkie-talkie with the descrambling code already punched in feels like a huge win, for both McClane and the audience.
The villains don't equal their Die Hard 1 counterparts, but they still prove to be a fitting group of antagonists. Sadler's naked tai-chi makes for a memorable introduction for Stuart, who later on has a great little exchange with McClane.
"And lesson one starts with killing policemen?" McClane yells at him over a walkie, challenging Stuart's bullshit political philosophizing. "What's lesson two? The neutron bomb?!"
Stuart, cool and malicious, replies, "No, I think we can find something in between," and then he crashes that airplane full of innocents.
Additionally, an insanely young, pre-T2 Robert Patrick shows up only to be quickly gunned down by McClane. And in one of the series' most memorable kills, Meat Tuperello from Porky's takes a fatal icicle to the eye. It's fun to watch Sadler and his team putting in the blue-collar work at the beginning of the film — installing cable, setting up computers — and wonder just what they're up to. In the better Die Hard movies, the villains' plans aren't just magically realized. They're built from good planning and hard work, and that fact that you actually see the infrastructure being laid down enhances the eventual payoff. ("Oh, that's what they were doing! They're turning that old church into a control tower!")
From a directing standpoint, Die Hard 2 is weird in that Renny Harlin gets the big stuff right while half-assing the small stuff. This movie contains some of the most obvious "oh that's the stunt double" shots in the history of film. The fight in the baggage area at the beginning of the movie, where a guy who is obviously not Bruce Willis is doing most of the heavy lifting, is particularly egregious. And yet Die Hard 2 is an expertly paced machine, with Harlan and editors Stuart Baird and Robert A. Ferretti balancing a number of dramatic ticking clocks to ratchet up the tension exponentially. (Planes overhead, including Holly's, are running out of gas. General Esperanza's plane gets closer and closer to arriving. The crowd inside the airport approaches a total panic as word gets out about the terrorists.) Die Hard 2 is overflowing with urgency, a necessity in any well-made action movie.
It's also jam-packed with great character actors having a field day chomping the scenery — Sadler, Atherton, John Amos, Dennis Franz, Fred Dalton Thompson, Franco Nero. Die Hard 2 features a bunch of tough guys bouncing off each other doing tough-guy things. And there, in the center of them all, is Willis. Still in his prime. Still engaged. Still with hair.
The scene where he's trapped in a parked plane with terrorists firing on (and eventually throwing grenades into) the cockpit is a thing of beauty. Everything great about McClane is on display right there. He's scared to death, freaking out, convinced he's about to die … yet he still maintains enough of his wits to suss out a possible escape, even if it's mostly crazy. So he straps himself into the ejection seat and pulls the lever. That overhead shot of him blasting toward the camera, screaming, "Oh, shiiiiit!" as the plane explodes underneath, is as iconic as anything in the entire series, including the original film. It's also Die Hard 2 in a nutshell: Bigger, louder and a little more preposterous … but still true to the character of John McClane, as much fun here as he ever was.
