The original Die Hard is one of my all-time favorite movies. It's well-paced, acted and directed, it's the complete package. For Die Hard 2, they brought in a new director, and Renny Harlin did an excellent job with this movie. It's very well directed, the action scenes and dialogue scenes are all great. The movie also follows up on what made John McClane such a great hero in the first movie, which was his vulnerability and his wit. Those things are heavily focused on here, making for a great hero. Bruce Willis obviously does a great job. The movie is also pretty well plotted and paced, and the twist makes sense and creates a very dark tone for the final part of the movie. Where the movie do suffer however, is the side characters. Lorenzo and Thornberg are both extremely annoying and doesn't add anything to the movie, and I got more and more angry everytime they appeared. Stuart is also not nearly as good a villain as Hans Gruber, and William Sadler isn't as charismatic as Alan Rickman. The movie also has a few structure problems, as there are way too many filler scenes that doesn't add anything. Those are pretty big flaws in my opinion, although the movie is still very good. It's a good sequel that unfortunately doesn't live up to the standard set by the first. Still, it's not a movie I regret watching at all, and I definietly consider it a valid follow-up to the original.
Review of Die Hard 2
