Die Hard 2 (1990)

Elevator Ptch: At snowy Washington Airport John McClane is waiting for the arrival of his wife on a plane, stacked above the city due to terrorists having taken over the communication systems from the tower. They intend to release a South Americna dictator who is scheduled to arrive on a military flight, and in order to gain the co-operation of the airport they engineer the crash of another aircraft. But they have not reckoned with McClane who takes on the villains, and as well as sorting them out, overcomes the opposition amongst the managemt of the airport itself.

Content: No nudity or sex, and if there was any smoking or drinking I don’t remember it amongst all the other stuff. Men in black combat gear set up their alternative air traffic control operation in a church, and make an aircraft crash with probably the deaths of all on board. McClane has arguments with the head of security a lot when he is not out there exchanging fire with men usually armed with machine guns. He knows what is going on, we almost know what is going on, but no-one else takes any notice.

A View: I don’t usually compare one film in a franchise with another, but of all the Die Hard films this is the one I liked least, in part because people shout a lot and because of the complexity of the plot we need to be updated all the time. And the only reason McClane has a handle on anything is because he pals up with a janitor who skulks in the workings of the airport, and to find out who the terrorists are they have shoehorned in the policeman from the first film. Nevertheless it played pretty well with the critics and the general public. My advice – give it a miss and go straight on the DH3.

Additional Info: Colm Meaney, who is later to be familiar to Star Trek fans appears briefly as the pilot of the aircraft which crashes.