Die Hard 2: Die Harder

John McClane (Bruce Willis) is once again meeting his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), for Christmas. This time she is the one flying in, but her plane has been delayed, so John hangs around the airport. As he sits on his butt, things are stirring. Col. Stuart (William Sadler) is preparing for his mission. Gen. Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero) is on a plane, on his way to be extradited, and Stuart is his underling who needs to get him safely away from the authorities. As Stuart and his lackeys set up shop in a church, McClane spots two suspicious looking guys in a restricted area and jumps them and kills one. The head of Airport Security Capt. Lorenzo (Dennis Franz), doesn't care about McClane's ideas, but McClane is able to figure out that the dead guy is a mercenary, although no one will listen to him.

Stuart's plan is put into action, taking over control of the Control Tower remotely. He warns the tower that all the planes are his hostages and that they should do nothing if they don't want the planes to crash. Esperanza's plane will be diverted to this airport and will land undisturbed. When Esperanza and all of Stuart's men are safely aboard another plane, Control will get control back.

A bunch stuff happens that involves Lorenzo trying to get their systems back on line but only resulting getting the Swat team killed and a plane crashing and McClane runs around the airport using the air ducts and such, much like in the first movie. Esperanzo's plane lands, but McClane can't kill him, and almost ends up dying.   Eventually the army shows up, led by Maj. Grant (John Amos). All the good guys think this is a good thing, especially when McClane finds out where Stuart's base of operation is and the army goes to take them out. Unfortunately, Grant is in on it and they are shooting blanks (literally). They go off and join Stuart, and are getting ready to take off on their plane.   McClane is able to commandeer a helicopter and gets on the plane while it's on the tarmac. He kills Grant by throwing him into the jet engine, which I'm pretty sure would have destroyed the engine, I mean birds can do it, and Grant is a bit bigger than birds. McClane then sets then falls off, but not before he causes a fuel leak which he sets on fire and then explodes the plane (I think that was busted on a Mythbusters episode). Anyway All the other planes flying around see that fire and use it to guide themselves down. Wow talk about traffic jams.

While, not as good as the first movie, it was still very enjoyable. The dialogue could've been better (much better) and they still have this problem where tertiary characters are stupid and their only purpose is to hinder McClane. Instead of bickering, they could've listen to they guy that has experience with this type of crap, or I don't know, try to undo whatever it was the two shady guys did at the begging of the movie. Obviously it was vital to the bad guy's plan, and no one goes to even check what it was they did?

The acting is just as good here as it was in the first movie. Sadler is an awesome villain, although I'm sure there was a much easier way to get Esperanza than their seemingly  very complicated plan. Or maybe Stuart likes complicated things.

Grade: 7.5/10