Die Hard 2: Die Harder (Blu-ray) (1990)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Action	Audio Commentary Deleted Scenes Featurette Featurette Featurette Featurette Featurette Featurette Featurette Featurette Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1990
Running Time	123:21 (Case: 126)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Renny Harlin
Studio Distributor	20th CENTURY FOX Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Bruce Willis Bonnie Bedelia William Atherton William Sadler Reginald Veljohnson Franco Nero John Amos Dennis Franz Art Evans Fred Dalton Thompson Tom Bower Sheila McCarthy Don Harvey
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	$29.95	Music	Michael Kamen

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 Italian dts 5.1 Spanish dts 5.1 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Italian Italian Titling Spanish Spanish Titling Danish Finnish Norwegian Swedish Polish Italian Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Until Die Hard In Name Only came along, Die Hard 2 was the weakest entry in the franchise. Looking at its production history, it is not difficult to see why. Fox had a massive hit with the original, and were anxious to strike again whilst the iron was still hot. Predictably, a script was rushed into the production stage, and a great deal of money was expended on turning it into a film. The story itself depends on complete implausibility (taking control of an airport's control facilities from a Church that sits on the border of the site), and total impossibility (a grate or manhole cover light enough for even Arnold Schwarzenegger at his peak to push up like that would be useless at keeping even the lightest aircraft from falling through).

    John McClane (Bruce Willis) is at Dulles International Airport (it's in Washington, D.C.) awaiting the flight that his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) is on. As in the first film, he encounters antagonism from the locals. As in the first film, persons with dangerous motives seize control of the site and demand a heavy price from the good guys in exchange for relinquishing it. As in the first film, Holly's life comes under direct threat as a result of this. The main differences are that the terrorists in this film really are terrorists in the classical sense, they seek the release of a General by the name of Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero) rather than what was then an obscenely large sum of money, and attempts are made at some actual plot twists.

    The problem, aside from a script that needed at least another six months in development, is that it steers too far in the same direction that Die Hard In Name Only went. That is, McClane becomes Superman too many times. He also asks what the audience is thinking at 39:42. Namely, how the same s*** can happen to the same guy twice. Exchanges of gunfire go into the completely implausible. In fact, anyone who knows their firearms and stuntwork knows that firearms cannot be switched to fire blanks at will like that. Adding to this is that there is no sense of scale in the whole thing. This place does not look like one of the world's busiest airports. But the one thing I can say in defense of Die Hard 2 is that at least on this occasion they recognised that not everyone in the world is a child.

Video

    The transfer is sharp. Far more so than was the case with DVD transfers, even the later special edition. It is not up to the standards one expects of more recent-generation BDs, but it is still very good. Shadow detail is good but not great. Low-level noise is not an issue. Grain is present in small amounts.

    The colours in the transfer are mostly well-balanced and natural, with no bleeds or oversaturation. Skin tones tend toward red in some shots, especially indoor ones. This complaint aside, the colours are spot-on.

    The transfer is compressed in the AVC codec. Compression artefacts are not visible in this transfer. Film to video artefacts are not visible in this transfer. Film artefacts are visible in small amounts, but well within acceptable limits for a film of this age.

    Subtitles are offered in English for the Hearing Impaired. These are almost entirely accurate to the spoken dialogue, although the aural cues are minimal.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue can be divided into two parts. The first is the parts that are important to make sense of the plot and how it evolves. The second is unimportant things like idiots delivering action film clichés, which are often delivered in raised voices. The former is clear and easy to understand at all times, the latter, not so much. At 76:18, Bruce Willis' barked command at Franco Nero to sit down is driven into clipping. This appears to be a problem with the recording methods rather than the transfer, however, as the rest of the louder parts of the soundtrack do not exhibit this problem. No audio sync problems were evident.

    The music in the film is credited to Michael Kamen. Like other scores in this series, it is about as subtle as a flying brick, with some themes duplicated from the original, and others composed anew. It is the least memorable of the scores from the Die Hard series proper, but this is hardly surprising when the relative merits of the films themselves are taken into consideration.

    The surround channels are utilised aggressively to direct gunfire, passing jet-skis, passing planes, debris, and other effects around the listener. The film was presented with Dolby SR in most theatres, whilst 70mm blow-ups had six-channel soundtracks. Hence, the people creating this remix would have had the ideal materials at their disposal. Although surround effects are not as constant as is the case with more recent films, they are integrated well into the soundtrack.

    The subwoofer is used aggressively to support music, gunfire, and explosions. It does an excellent job of this. It is also integrated well with the rest of the soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The Pop-Up Menu is minimalist, somewhat anti-intuitive to navigate, and rather slow in response. On top of this, it has bugs that render it inoperable in some circumstances. If you still have an early-generation player, use of this menu will be excruciating. No Top Menu is provided.

Audio Commentary - Renny Harlin (Director)

    Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. Not a commentary I would come back to anytime soon.

Deleted Scenes

    Four scenes not good enough to make the finished cut, with a total running time of eight minutes and fifteen seconds. A Play All option is provided. These are presented in severely windowboxed 2.35:1 with relatively quiet Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. One scene in which Robert Patrick gets a little more screentime will be sorely missed by one of my acquaintances, I am sure. The rest were cut for all of the right reasons.

Featurette - HBO First Look

    Twenty-three minutes and eight seconds that was used to promote the film on TV. Pretty much an extended electronic press kit.

Featurette

    Seriously, this one is listed as just "Featurette" in the special features menu. Four minutes and seven seconds. An extended trailer.

Featurette - The Bad Guys

    As in all films of this nature, the hero can only be as good as his antagonists are bad. William Sadler understands this, as his contribution attests. Otherwise, this featurette is pretty blah like the rest. Six minutes and thirty-nine seconds.

Featurette - Breaking The Ice

    Four minutes and ten seconds of explanation of the stuntwork in the film, with a particular focus on the jet-ski sequence.

Featurette - Chaos On The Conveyor Belt

    Seven minutes and fifty three seconds devoted to the luggage processing area sequence.

Featurette - Interview With Renny Harlin

    For six minutes and forty-four seconds, Renny Harlin describes his approach to making the film. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that there is a great film lurking in him somewhere, but given that the earliest work I have seen of his is A Nightmare On Elm Street 4…

Featurette - Visual Effects Breakdowns

    Selecting this option leads to a sub-submenu with Ejector Seat, Airport Runway, and Storyboard Sequence as options. Total running length is eight minutes and fifteen seconds.

Featurette - Side-By-Side Comparisons

    Selecting this option leads to another sub-submenu with Chopper, Airplane Models, and Wing Fight as options. Total running time is six minutes and sixteen seconds.

Trailers and TV Spots

    Seven minutes and twenty-three seconds of trailers in their own submenu. A total of four trailers listed as A, B, C, and D, and two TV spots are listed, with a Play All option. Aspect ratios vary between 1.33:1 and 2.35:1, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. Quality ranges from what one would expect from trailers of this age to rather well-preserved. Except for TV Spot A, that is. TV Spot A looks like it has spent the time between 1990 and 2007 laying on the bottom of a Fox executive's pool.

    Actual reviews of the disc outside of the four-film boxed set presented difficulty in tracking down. From the information I was able to locate, it is reasonable to believe that the disc in that boxed set is the same one released separately early on in the format's life. The main difference with the Region A disc is that it has less subtitle and soundtrack options. Like most Fox titles on this format, we can call this one even.

    The video transfer is very good.

    The audio transfer is very good, but more than a little front-focused.

    The extras are numerous, but add up to very little, and have to contend with one of the worst menus the format has seen to date.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall