58 Minutes pour vivre

I don't know how it could but it did and I enjoyed it a lot. This was one great flick and it's one of those movies that seem longer than it actually is.

John McClane(Willis)is back. Only this time he's at Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. waiting for his wife's plane to arrive. But when McClane stumbles upon a couple of terrorists he tries to warn everyone in the control tower about it. But before they could do anything, the terrorists shut down all of the plane's landing systems. The terrorist leader led by Col. Stuart(played greatly by William Sadler)is demanding that major foreign drug dealer, General Esperanza is freed. But since the tower is powerless, McClane wages another one man war against the terrorists and must hurry before his wife's plane crashes.

Willis and Sadler do great jobs in their roles. Dennis Franz also does a funny job as the airport police chief. It has a great return of some old characters such as Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton, and Reginald VelJohnson.

This gets my vote as the most entertaining of the three Die Hard movies. 10/10

John McClane is in Washington to meet his wife as she arrives at the airport. However as he waits for her plane to come in terrorists seize control of the control equipment and keep the planes circling. They plan to rescue captured dictator General Esperanza by landing his plane at the airport and making their escape. However as the terrorists wait the circling planes get shorter and shorter on fuel, leading John McClane to take what action he can to regain control of the planes.

This second of the exciting die hard series has a hard act to follow. The first film was amazing and broke the mould relating to action films, it showed that action could occur in everyday locations, caused English actors to get lots of work as bad guys and set many other copycat films in motion (die hard on a mountain, die hard on a bus etc). However this is nothing special. The plot tries to be similar to the original but it lacks as much originality as the first. The terrorist plot is not quite as likely and it doesn't have the same flow as the first. Story-wise the main flaw is in McClane's involvement - in the first film he was very much trapped and forced to take action, in fact his first instinct was to run away from the terrorists. Here the same is not true, Willis tries to make it seem that he doesn't want all this again ("how can the same **** happen to the same guy") but really he throws himself into the thick of the battle. This takes away from the image of him as an ordinary guy put into a difficult situation.

The action scenes don't help this problem. Yes all the action scenes are good and exciting, but many of them are too big. In the first the action occurred in short standoffs, usually with McClane running away or sneaking around. Here there's too many of one man v's the world style action with Willis running in against a large number of terrorists and winning. Again this takes away from the tension and claustrophobia of the other film and makes it feel like a Arnie blockbuster. That said the action is still good and won't disappoint action fans.

The main failing of the film is that it tries to be like the first film without success. It retains the same set-up (McClane trying to rescue his wife from terrorists), brings back the same Christmas time setting and music, it even wheels back in as many repeat characters as it can (Veljohnson as Sergeant Powell, Atherton as Thornburg) but it loses the most important item - the set parameters of the action. Die Hard was great because it had very tightly set locations for it's action in the office block. Here the action can spread out all over so a lot of the tension and claustrophobia is lost. The decision to make the second film so similar to the first can only lead us to comparing the two and seeing the inferiorities.

The performances are quite good generally. Willis can almost do this type of thing in his sleep while the other repeat characters simply redo their roles. Unfortunately many of the repeat characters don't have much to do and seem out of place. The 'new' characters fill the stereotyped shoes of previous actors. Dennis Franz takes on the mantle of incompetent cop standing in McClane's way by going by the book, Sheila McCarthy takes on the story hungry journalist role etc. The bad guys do have a lot to live up to by replacing Alan Rickman and they don't quite reach that standard. William Sadler is good as Colonel Stuart but doesn't have any style of his own, anyway it's good to see Franco Nero (cult star of western Django) in an American film.

The film has some nice twists towards the end but it just doesn't come close to the atmosphere of the first film. By trying to be similar to the first film, Renny Harlin shows that he's not as capable as McTiernan in creating a mood of tension mixed with the action. The result is a great action movie but one that cowers in the shadow of it's better bigger brother.

this is still a good movie,although it's not as good as the first one.for one thing,it's a lot slower paced and there is less action.John McClane is once again the only person who seems to be standing in the way of terrorists carrying out there plan.this time,it just happens to an airport which is the scene.Bruce Willis is back as McClane,of course,and he actually has some more and funnier lines than in the first.William Sadler plays the main bad guy in this one,and puts in a great performance.i liked his character better than the main villain in the first movie.the biggest problem with this movie,like i mentioned,is the pacing.it is a bit slow especially compared to the first one.but that makes a big difference in how enjoyable it is is.it's just not as fun or thrilling.for me,Die Hard 2 is a 7/10

...but other than that, there's very little going against the second in the series. It helps (but not enough) that the character realizes he's basically in a sequel. There are some minor variations in the formula, but basically the movie relies on the Bruce Willis' charisma and humor, and elaborate action sequences. William Sadler is okay, but no Alan Rickman (or Jeremy Irons in #3). It's still enjoyable, though.

For those who argue that Die Hard 2 is a desperate re-hash of the original... So what? I didn't expect a companion piece like The Godfather Part II. Die Hard was about a really cool guy in a really bad situation, and the result was probably the greatest action movie ever made. Die Hard 2 achieves status on its own just by being about the same thing. When so many movies want to be Die Hard but fail, why not just make another Die Hard? Director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger)realized that because it's a sequel, there had to be more stunts and explosions. So there is. Die Hard 2 (appropriately called Die Harder) ups the ante a bit and has fun with a flurry of furious action scenarios. The fight on the wing of the plane is a classic in its own right, and Die Hard 2 stands alone as one of the best of the genre.