"Die Hard 2" I hear you say "Why not Die Hard?". Well yes I agree, Die Hard was ace and Alan Rickman is indeed the super villain we all revel in but Film 4 was showing this and I thought Bah, I'll start with a sequel.
Originally I was going to do a grand entrée with The Thing, my all time favourite film and an ever growing cult favourite. However we've all got to start somewhere and why not with 1990 Bruce.
Firstly I have watched this film many times, I can comfortably go make a brew without the need to pause it as I'm with flow.
So relax, sequels can be relaxing, we know the character, we know "Yippee Ki-yay Mother Fucker" and its Christmas. All is well. All is samey. All is about to boom in your face.
From the very first moment you feel happy to see John McClane, he’s having a tough time with some cops that don't understand him. Its snowing which you know is going to
make his life slightly harder at some point in the film and we have our stage, an airport.
Then straight away we meet the Colonel , slightly distracting being naked and doing some sort of martial art dance thing. However it thrusts me to Timecop destination (1994), it must have been an early 90s thing to do in films. From this moment you know Colonel is going to cause hell for McClane. Nudey hell. Hell of the nude variety. Hell nude. The last is my favourite.
So we have our good guy, bad guy and now Holly. She’s on a plane. I love how simple this film is. You could drink a lot of gin and still be able to follow the narrative. Ah the 1990s with its hair, cigarettes and watches.
The wit in this film is immediate. McClane has so many one liners that a joke leaflet could be formed as a result. The action starts in the baggage area but McClane keeps his woolly jumper firmly stapled to his body. Under his jumper I know the vest must exist. Its not Die Hard without that vest. Its not an action film without that vest. I was told in film class that the Die Hard vest was the most iconic symbol of the action genre so don’t be messing with that in your follow up sequels. I am not 100% sure if this is fact or a hazy thought I once had but I’m going with it.
“Wake up and smell the 90s” Faxes people, faxes. Take your smart tech, faxes were the bang in McClane territory. I used a fax once, at work, I didn’t understand it and it made the loudest noise. The kind of noise that both the machine and I were at unease with each other and the activity at hand.
One thing I do notice about the Die Hard franchise is the extreme amounts of metal, air vents, boiler rooms, underground systems, tunnels, poles, escalators. If you could think of something metal I bet somewhere it would be in a Die Hard film.
“How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?”
Well you are quite right John, but I’m glad it did (and another few times too!).
It is amongst the metal we lose the jumper, disappointingly not a vest. Where’s the vest McClane? Bloody metaphors getting in the way of good old vest wearing action. However by losing the jumper this can only signify one thing. The action is about to get real and yes I am right but this time I noticed something about John McClane. Whilst he was shooting the last fake painter guy McClane looked real sad. Like “Oh man, Why me, I’m tired, I need a poo and then a nap, Not this.”
So onto the British, Us with silly accents and mannerisms and drinking tea and using curse words like bollocks (Americans and the word bollocks, look it up). In nearly all action films of an significance around the late 80s early 90s there was some shit happening to THE BRITISH.
And for this reason I lost focus for a while on the film, not one to rewind (unless there was a real need) I can only say lots of people were angry. A lot of anger. All this anger surrounded on the boundaries an unlikely relationship between Marv (Caretaker) and McClane. I think these moments were to ease the viewer at home from having a hernia, raised blood pressure or risking a clot.
So I swiftly move onto the grate. Will McClane get out of the grate? Do we care? God its tense. Lets think about Marv. Ah the moments over. Thanks Marv. Oh no he’s stuck in the cockpit. Why does he keep getting stuck? McClane gets stuck an awful lot in all 4 films. I should really compile a list called “McClane gets stuck in really tricky places that are a bit shit”.
So he’s stuck in the cockpit, yep, not getting out of that one. Oh hang on this is Die Harder and he is a “lucky fuck”. Who’d have thought it!
So on we must tread, at this point what do we need, what will make this complete? You’ve guessed it a snow bike chase accompanied by a fake shoot out. If I were to count how much gunfire happened during this film then I’d really be taking this far to seriously however if I were to have a guess it would be 60 trillion times. I am for real on this 60 trillion is a completely satisfactory guess.
I am coming to the end and haven’t mentioned Dick. Proud. Bloody Dick Thornberg. Screwing everyone’s especially Holly’s life up. Cock, Weiner, Dick. I can’t elaborate really, feel a bit sick talking about dick.
So the end is nigh, the finale climax is upon us. McClane, a plane and about 40 bad guys. We know what happens so instead of dwelling on that lets focus on the Colonel. When we were first introduced to this clever, dynamic villain he was 1. Naked, 2. Doing some kind of martial art dance thing. We are taken back to this with a slightly longer demonstration which resulted in a premature sense of achievement for the Colonel.
So there we have it, the famous line, the plane blows, McClane hysterically laugh crying, shouting Holly. The end you think? Well....... you would think so, lets go home, jolly music, parking tickets ripped up. Yep that’s the end. Go poo McClane, you’ve earnt some alone time.
