Bruce Willisas John McClaneThe story
About Die Hard 2
On Christmas Eve, an off-duty police officer is waiting at a snowbound airport outside the US capital for his wife's flight to land. A unit of rogue soldiers seizes the airport's control systems to free a deposed military dictator being flown in for trial, leaving a stack of airliners, hers among them, circling in a blizzard with fuel running low. Brushed off by the airport's own police chief, he goes after the hijackers largely on his own.
The CineClaus verdict
The sequel moves the Christmas Eve siege to a snowbound airport and turns the volume up.
Bruce Willis is still good company and the blizzard does honest festive work, but the tightness of the first film has gone. The plot leans hard on coincidence, and one disaster midway lands far grimmer than the wisecracks around it.
Christmas is the occasion here, not the point. Good fun as the second half of a double bill for anyone who already rewatches the original every December, but not the place to start.
The family desk
Can the kids watch?
Our take: bloody shoot-outs, a lot of strong language and a plane crash with a heavy death toll mean older teenagers at the earliest.
BBFC advice: Contains strong language and bloody violence.
Content advice & accessibility
- Where the advice comes from
- The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).
- Our age guidance
- Editorial, separate from the official 15 certificate, and never looser than it.
- Subtitles
- Check your chosen service and edition for supported tracks.
