
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 7, 1990                   TAG: 9007070342
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

'DIE HARD 2' IS TWO HOURS OF ESCAPISM

"Die Hard 2" is a fine sequel. It delivers 70 to 80 percent of the kick of the original, and that's about the best that fans can expect.

Judged against the summer's other big action movies, this one is as good as or a little better than "Robocop 2" and it delivers a lot more bang for the buck than "Total Recall."

The plot and setting are almost identical to the first film. It's Christmas Eve again. This time, policeman John McClane (Bruce Willis) is meeting his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) at Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia (most of the film was shot in Colorado.) She is arriving on the same day that a deposed Latin American dictator is being sent to Washington for trial on drug charges.

A group of right-wing mercenaries led by Col. Stuart (William Sadler), who likes to practice his martial arts naked, is prepared to take over the airport and spring the dictator. Then a massive snowstorm hits the area. Before you know it, planes are stacking up overhead and McClane is running around through the bowels of the building where he dispatches a host of machine gun-toting bad guys. The slimy TV reporter, Thornberg (William Atherton), is on hand again to complicate matters, along with a handful of bone-headed bureaucrats and officials.

This script by Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson doesn't build as tensely and inexorably as the first one did. It stumbles at first and some of the action sequences are so far-fetched they border on fantasy or self-parody. But director Renny Harlin ("Nightmare on Elm St. 4") keeps things moving so quickly that you don't have time to worry about the holes in the plot or the illogical lapses.

Willis' wise-cracking cynicism is still effective, too. He carries the story over some of the roughest spots. The big shoot-'em-up sequences feature the same inventive staging, involving tons of breaking glass, and spectacular special effects that made the first film so exciting.

Overall, "Die Hard 2" lacks the concentration and, of course, the originality of its predecessor, and its villains just aren't as interesting as those GQ-boys-gone-bad were. But, flaws and all, this one is still a two-hour vacation from reality, and the ending is just terrific.

Yippie-ki-yi-yay . . .

`Die Hard 2' A Twentieth-Century Fox release playing at the Salem Valley 8 and Valley View 6 theaters. Two hours long. Rated R for graphic violence and extremely rough language.

by CNB