Die Hard 2

Die harder, yo. That's the tagline and occasional subtitle, but I don't think this movie is really die hardier than the first. It's pretty die hardy, but if die hardness is measured by what made the original unique, then the sequel drifted away from that somewhat. Any action movie can have gun fights and explosions, so what made Die Hard cool was that John McClane didn't win by blowing the bad guys away, but by acting intelligently and being a tough son of a bitch. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse, and him matching wits with Gruber was a lot of fun. Die Hard 2 mostly sacrifices that for a bunch of traditional action movie stuff, and while it hits those notes pretty well, and is a pretty decent movie overall, it's definitely a significant step down.

In some ways, the set up is very similar (close enough that the characters repeatedly remark on how unlikely it is for McClane to be in the middle of this kind of thing twice), with bad guys taking several planes full of passengers hostage at an airport rather than the guests of a party in a building, again on Christmas Eve. There's still some subterfuge as the good guys try a few ways to regain control of the wayward planes, but McClane's role is mostly limited to shooting guys and making generally terrible wisecracks. He has a few chances to be clever, but really the treatment of the character is one of the most disappointing aspects of the sequel. I still generally like Bruce Willis, but this just isn't one of the best scripts he's gotten. My favorite actor in the movie was actually Dennis Franz playing a typical angry police captain to the hilt, and clearly enjoying the work. There's a couple other likable performances, but really the movie's all about the action. The plot doesn't make sense and the brutality of the violence seems a little over the top, but that's pretty much what you have to expect from big action movies. At the very least it's mostly enjoyable trash the whole way through, which would generally be fine, except it just hurts a bit more after the original.

Die Hard

What? You've never seen Die Hard!? BLEUUUUUUUGHHHHH.

Die Hard was a pretty exciting and funny movie, although it was really more of a suspense/thriller sort of thing than a true action movie, considering Bruce Willis' John McClane spends most of his time creeping around an office building, hiding from thugs and trading barbs with Alan Rickman, as opposed to shooting dudes and blowing crap up. Although he does that too. I think it was lauded by action fans at the time for McClane not being some ridiculously amazing superhero guy, instead just being a good cop who has to fight his way tooth-and-nail through everything. Though really, with all the punishment his body takes in just a few hours, it ended up seeming just as unrealistic to me as the alternative. Still, I enjoyed it for the novel feel.

The movie holds up pretty well considering it's 21 years old. There's very few instances of anything being too 80s besides John's wife's hair and it's focused on an intricate robbery/hostage situation instead of something that would seem quaint now. I don't know if it's just me, but it felt like the actions taken by the police and FBI are completely fucking ridiculous and would never happen in a world that's supposed to be gritty and real, but it doesn't hamper the main tension too much. John McTiernan was a pretty consistent director in the beginning of his career, and it's too bad he's tapered off so much since then. I'm not hyped to immediately jump into the sequels or anything, but Die Hard didn't disappoint after the long wait.

The Running Man

How can you not like Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies? Especially during his prime in the 80's to early 90's? They're great. I don't care how stupid and over the top they are, few things are more basely entertaining than watching Arnold kill bad guys and pop off one-liners. The lines here are as cheesy as it gets, especially one that I'd put in his top five of all time.

"I'll live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your god damn spine!"

I love it. He starts out simple with his answer to the bad guy's offer of a nice TV deal, but then keeps it going as best he can, and manages to squeeze three separate physical threats into a single sentence. Good stuff.

From a pure action standpoint, The Running Man is pretty weak. The fights are pretty short, and they're a little too focused on Arnold finding clever ways to quickly dispatch them instead of interesting combat. It still manages to stay afloat as a movie thanks to the extra humor throughout. In addition to Arnold's lines, there's plenty of other solid jokes coming in from the bad guy, his minions, and all the people in the audience. The science fiction story taken from a book isn't amazing but it creates an interesting setting and set of circumstances for the characters, and adds to the enjoyment. I'm a little disappointed with some of the choices made around the end, but it's still quite a fun movie, and should be seen just to witness Arnold with a beard.