Dec. 14, 2011 - Issue #843: New Year’s Eve Style
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Wed, Dec 21 (9:15 pm) - Metro Cinema
» Wait, is this the right bad day?
The first movie was also a pretty popular film, so you can see why a studio would want to capitalize on it with a sequel. Unfortunately, the sequel in question, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, emerged during the period when followups were cast in the mould of the original, meant to top previous thrills rather than continue a character's story in any meaningful way.
The result is clumsy editing, over-the-top music, horrendously brain-dead dialogue and a ridiculous, formulaic plot. You can practically hear the dialogue that generated this film:
"That first movie was great. Let's do another, but make it bigger. Instead of a mostly deserted high rise, it'll happen in a busy airport."
"Yeah, and let's have even more bad guys for John McClane to shoot. Audiences like gun fights."
"And let's make these guys military. They'll be tougher then. Oh, and we've got to blow something big up."
"It's an airport. How about a plane?"
"Perfect. And people really laughed at that LA cop in the first one. Al. The one that loved the Twinkies."
"Yeah, yeah. What if we have McClane phone him, and when he answers he's eating–"
"A Twinkie! Beautiful!"
"And we've got to have McClane's wife back again."
"Definitely. Let's put her on one of the planes. And why don't we get that annoying news reporter back in there, too?"
"On the same plane!"
"Yes. Wait, do you think people will buy that?"
"That he just happens to be on the same plane as her? Hmm. You know, if we have enough gunfire and blow enough things up—"
"Then nobody will notice just how much this entire film is driven by an effort to recycle the first movie and make a ton of money off it. Genius. Sheer genius."
Sure, the filmmakers try to make light of the similarities between the films—"Another basement, another elevator. How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?" McClane asks at one point—and Bruce Willis does his best with the material—his repeat of the "Yipee ki-yay, motherfuckers" line from the first film is nearly epic—but that doesn't change the fact that you can practically hear a cash register dinging every time a gun fires in Die Hard 2.
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