DIE HARD 2 - Blu-Ray (20th Century-Fox 1990) Fox Home Video

In 1988, John McTiernan’s Die Hard rocked the box office with its infectious blend of high-rise terrorism, deftly handled by screenwriters, Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza’s tongue-in-cheek approach to the antics involving one stubborn and sassy cop, John McClane (played with uber-sarcasm by Bruce Willis). And while the executive brain trust at Fox was none too pleased, to downright alarmed to see their as yet completed new home offices at Century City Plaza being detonated with minor explosives during Die Hard’s climactic showdown (apparently no one received the memo they were actually shooting a summer blockbuster there!), the whopping box office success of the picture practically guaranteed a sequel would be in the works. Regrettably, McTiernan was not available for this second bite at the apple, leaving Die Hard 2 (1990) in the mostly competent hands of director, Renny Harlin (a.k.a. Mr. Geena Davis) who otherwise, badly bungled much of the story, loosely based on Walter Wager’s novel, 58 Minutes.  Harlin might have played the lead here, as his cockiness and temperament greatly resembled Bruce Willis’ on-camera ‘never say die’ chutzpah.  The writing honors were again left to de Souza who collaborated with newcomer to the franchise, Doug Richardson. And while Die Hard 2 would feature some genuinely impressive action sequences, surely to rival anything achieved in the first movie, what was decidedly lacking this time around was the ample opportunity to allow for Bruce Willis to be Bruce Willis. 

While Die Hard is very much the saga of one frazzled cop, who uses his own blue-collar wits and humor to escape certain death, the aegis for Part 2’s storytelling is squarely focused on William Sadler’s taut and muscular, and, John Amos’ butch and brutal baddies to sell the picture, leaving Willis’ amiable right cop in the wrong place, merely to survive the deluge – and Willis, to cry all the way to the bank, having reportedly earned $7.5 million to partake. Marking the first usage of digitally composited live-action footage wed to traditional matte paintings, Die Hard 2 would otherwise ante up the grotesqueness in its violence and take in a staggering $240 million on a $70 million budget, or roughly, double what Die Hard had done at the box office. But lest we forget big money does not necessary reflect the girth of a movie’s entertainment value. And Die Hard 2, for all its calculated and thought-numbing destructiveness, is mostly revived and reviewed today as just another over-produced actioner, suffering from the dry rot and bloat of its genre, but also lacking the vitality and freshness of the original.

Figuratively and literally, Die Hard 2 is a much darker movie, Oliver Wood’s cinematography taking place under the cover of night, and dimly lit to foster maximum dread in our fear of the unknown. Part of what helped to make the original movie so memorable and endlessly re-watchable, was McTiernan’s intuition – knowing precisely how to parcel off the action ‘set pieces’ with some lightly peppered comedy, and also, some genuine plot development, evenly spread to fill the entire run time. The sequel gives us the entire plot in a nutshell. But fifteen minutes into this ear-deafening follow-up, we are suddenly plunged into one on-going action sequence with only rudimentary dialogue thereafter, basically to connect the dots and/or remind us what we are watching is, in fact, a movie, not a violent video game where too many stick figures with no soul, and zero staying power, have been merely inserted to be moved about the proscenium as chess pieces from points ‘A’ to ‘B’ and beyond.  Chalk it up to experience, I suppose, but the de Sousa/Richardson screenplay completely emasculates the John McClane character here – void of any and all self-preservation (which made him shamelessly lovable and genuine) and ditching McClane’s ‘yahoo’ quasi-cowboy persona to completely assimilate into a full-on Rambo/Terminator knock-off.

Plot wise: having already rescued his wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) the Christmas before from marauding terrorists inside Nakatomi Plaza, New York Police Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) must now save her yet again, and, a host of passengers aboard her flight from a group of terrorists fronted by Col. Stuart (William Sadler), who has seized control of the airport’s radio tower and is threatened to maliciously crash land planes on the tarmac by reprogramming them with faulty landing coordinates – unless, of course, his immediate demands are met. The chief problem is, of course, there remains ‘an insider’ poised to wreck McClane’s rescue mission; Maj. Grant (John Amos) who pretends to be part of the tactical team sent in to diffuse the situation but, in reality, is actually working for Stuart on the liberation of Gen. Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero). *Aside: Esperanza is credited as being an exile of Valverde – the fictional Latin American country featured in the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando (1985), for which Wager’s novel was originally purchased as a possible sequel to that movie – not Die Hard.

The big problem with Die Hard 2 is that it steadily unravels into a conveniently contrived actioner, the pyrotechnic infused action sequences merely designed – however spectacularly – to obfuscate the fact any 5-yr.-old could figure out its ending less than 8-mins. into its storytelling. The insertion of Sgt. Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) - the good-natured cop, and, disgustingly self-absorbed reporter, Richard Thornburg (William Atherton), both holdovers from the first movie – the latter, conveniently aboard Holly’s plane (thereby allowing for a moment of sweet revenge late in the piece – she taser guns him into submission before he can break the story) are played as pure camp. Even if the audiences’ level of expectation for thrills is overwhelmed by pyrotechnics and gun fire, the results are somehow less satisfactorily achieved as Willis’ battered and bruised hero emerges from the debris, still the undisputed champ of the piece, the idyllic blend of cynicism and patriotism becoming less palpably engaging with each renewed viewing. Harlin’s direction is perhaps a bit more perfunctory. He certainly likes his action sequences, Ginsu-ed with multiple cutaways, and, a lot of slo-mo to fully embrace the breadth of destruction. Nothing impresses the arm-chair warrior more than total devastation of people and property. Yet, in the final analysis, Die Hard 2 never quite gets over the hurdle of being too excessive and deliberate in trying to outdo its predecessor.

Fox Home Video’s Blu-Ray easily bests its previously issued (and re-issued) Collector’s Edition. The Blu-Ray’s picture quality is solid, though ironically, not superb. Oliver Wood’s cinematography looks good, but subtler tonality is lacking in the darkest scenes, accompanied by minor hints of black crush that occasionally distract. The color palette favors ruddy tones – browns, oranges, blacks, grays, with the occasional glistening of blood and guts to augment the spectrum. On the whole, colors are deep, rich and solid. Flesh tones are very nicely realized. While the image is refined, it never quite achieves that level of razor-sharp crispness we have come to expect. The audio is DTS 5.1, delivering an earth-shattering experience during the action sequences. Dialogue, is crisp. Curiously, the Blu-Ray contains all the extras included in the SE DVD (*curious because most of the extras from the SE DVD for the original Die Hard have yet to make the transition to Blu-Ray). We get the thorough documentary on the making of the sequel, reflections and interviews from cast and crew, plus audio commentaries, a stills gallery and the original theatrical trailer. Bottom line: Die Hard 2 could certainly use a new 4K upgrade. While the image here is not a disaster, it is hardly reference quality. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

3