What do you think of Die Hard 2 (1990)?

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Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
It's the kind of movie I could go either way on and not sure how to decide on it exactly. It's got really good action scenes for sure, but it feels like such a repeat of the first one, but with big coincidences.

SPOILERS

What are the odds that a terrorist attack would happen to the same couple again, with the same reporter on the same plane as Holly McClane, even though it takes place on the other side of the country?

Also I felt that the new reporter character, was not necessary to the plot at all, unless it's just me? The biggest problem of the plot for me though, is that it seems to have a huge plot hole, as to why didn't all the planes, suspended in the air, just go to other airports? I know it's an action movie, but that is a much bigger plot than usual it seems, and maybe audiences in the 90s could accept such a plot hole, but I don't think one that big would be as accepted in an action movie of today as likely. Not that action movies today are written any better, but usual the plot holes are debunked more by viewers by today's standards it seems.

But what do you think?



Haven't seen it for years, it is a bit of a carbon copy of the first one. Not as good as 3, but better than the ones that came later.
You kind of lose me at the (hysterical) notion that "modern" audiences are somehow more sophisticated than 90s ones.



Die Hard 2 is a bit like Ghostbusters 2.
GB2 got better when the remake was announced, and got even better again when the remake turned out to be a pile of cack.


Die Hard 2 got better when part 4 was made... and even better again when part 5 was quickly churned out.



Haven't seen it for years, it is a bit of a carbon copy of the first one. Not as good as 3, but better than the ones that came later.
You kind of lose me at the (hysterical) notion that "modern" audiences are somehow more sophisticated than 90s ones.


The thing with Die Hard though is the director behind it.
I've heard almost everyone say this ^^ about part 3, including myself.


Die Hard 1 and 3 had McTiernan at the helm... parts 2, 4 and 5 were low-end directors.
Harlin directed Die Hard 2... and off the top of my head, I can't actually say who it was who directed 4 and 5



Welcome to the human race...
Yeah, the planes-going-to-other-airports is definitely a plot hole that the film never truly addresses, seemingly out of necessity. At least the new reporter character serves a purpose in that she ultimately helps McClane by letting him use her helicopter to catch up to the villains' plane - I've only just realised that it's an inversion of the first film where the reporter who spends most of the film just dicking around outside the building ends up making everything worse in the third act (which he does in this one, too - you want to talk about coincidences, then him ending up being on the same plane as Holly is a pretty severe one).

As for what I think, I'm going to go with the decidedly common opinion that it is the third-best film in the series (you shouldn't have to ask what the first two are) and that it's ultimately pretty passable.
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It's not just the plot hole of "Why not just fly to another airport?" that gets me tbh.


When the terrorists shut down coms to the airplanes........... any airport within 200 miles of an aircraft can communicate with said aircraft.
Now, I'm not up on DC much, but a quick Google search says there's 3 airports, so basically the airplanes in Die Hard 2 were actually circling airspace over all 3 of them.
Surely a quick phone call to the other ports, and tell them to radio to the aircraft of the terrorist situation, would have sufficed?



I haven't seen DH2 in many years, buy from what I remember it was above average, but not great.

The first & the third are classics. The rest are forgettable.

I may not, I recently rewatched the original Lethal Weapon... it hasn't aged well.



It's a
+ fillum for me, enjoyable enough but no great shakes.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
One thing I like about DH2 over 1, is how the director had the guts to show the villains kill more hostages to prove their points.

SPOILER


In the first one, Hans kills only one hostage (Ellis), and then says "Tell me where my detonators are, or should I shoot another one". Then McClane does not tell him, and Hans just gives up after and figures that he couldn't get McClane to tell him. I'm pretty sure if he wasted three more hostages, and threatened to kill a fifth, John would have cracked. But Hans just easily gives up after. So at least the writers made the villain DH2, more threatening and harder to bargain with, that way.



Welcome to the human race...
Hans' main method for recovering the detonators was always to have his men track down McClane. The situation with Ellis only happened because Ellis insisted on getting involved - once it was over, Hans went right back to his original plan of tracking down McClane. Hans knows better than to rely on threatening hostages - if McClane was willing to let Ellis die rather than hand over the detonators, then Hans also has to consider the possibility that McClane would still keep letting hostages die. Since Hans' plan still depends on him keeping the rest of his hostages alive until he can blow them up on the roof, he can't immediately kill them off anyway.

Meanwhile, Colonel Stuart causes a plane crash only after McClane and the airport staff try (and fail) to interfere with his plans - he wants to stop them from interfering any further. There's no Ellis-type character forcing his hand, no detonator-like device he needs to complete his plan, and he's not saving the hostages for his endgame. It's around that time that the Special Forces show up and everyone but McClane is willing to let them take over the operation (even though they're on Stuart's side), so they're not counting on McClane to keep fighting them anyway.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Well I figured Hans would still have like 15 hostages after killing just a few, and that would still be more than enough, that he had a few extra to waist as a bonus to get McClane to crack.



Welcome to the human race...
I also figure that it's simply not his style. Hans prides himself on being an efficient and professional criminal, so he ultimately decides that his time and effort is better focused on finding McClane than killing more hostages (which would seem desperate and unprofessional). You're guessing how many hostages it would take for McClane to crack, but Hans doesn't want to take guesses at all. For all he knows, it might take more than five dead hostages. Hans wants to minimise the risks and focus on finding solutions as quickly as possible (they are operating on a schedule, after all), which is why he decides that he can't wait around for McClane to give in and goes after him instead (which does get him the detonators, so it was the right choice).



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Yeah that's a good point, it makes sense...

As for Live Free or Die Hard, I actually like that one better than 2 because 2 feels like such a carbon copy of the first one, compared to Live Free or Die Hard.



It's good movie, 8/10 for me.



Welcome to the human race...
Yeah that's a good point, it makes sense...

As for Live Free or Die Hard, I actually like that one better than 2 because 2 feels like such a carbon copy of the first one, compared to Live Free or Die Hard.
Understandable, though I'd say that Live Free feels too much like a carbon copy of With a Vengeance for me (the same could go for A Good Day to Die Hard, too).



Like other people had said, I think that DH2 is a "not as good" version of the first one. I watched the first 4 back-to-back-to-back-to-back not long ago and the difference between the first one and all its sequels is night and day for me. All of them are at least good, but the first one is just SO GOOD that it made the sequels look rather bland by comparison. It seemed impossible for any of the sequel's villains to match Hans Gruber, who in my opinion is right up there with some of the greatest movie villains ever. I've still never seen A Good Day to Die Hard, but I've heard that's the only Die Hard movie that's really considered bad.

Anyways though, what I think of Die Hard 2 is that it's an above-average film with some really good scenes. There are some parts in it that I wasn't a big fan of, such as the "blanks battle" and the whole airport terrorism plot seemed pretty convoluted. It also seemed like they tried to cram too many characters into the story. Overall though I would recommend it to any action film fan—as long as they DON'T expect it to be on the original's level.



The original is clearly the best film of the series, I go back and forth on the 2nd and 3rd films personally.

With A Vengeance is obviously a much more original film than Die Harder and arguably has more entertaining performances yet I did lose some of the intensity and edge that the previous film retained.