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  Specs
  • Widescreen 2.35:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer (RSDL )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  Subtitles
    Spanish, Hebrew, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Portuguese, English - Hearing Impaired, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish
  Extras
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Cast/crew biographies
  • Featurette
  • Animated menus

Die Hard 2: Die Harder

20th Century Fox/20th Century Fox . R4 . COLOR . 123 mins . G . PAL

  Feature
Contract

Renny Harlin takes action and adventure to grand scales in his blockbusters such as Long Kiss Goodnight, Cuthroat Island and Cliffhanger. Two years on and he's taken the Die Hard franchise to a bigger location, bigger action, harder terrorists and hard situations. It's time to Die Harder.

John McClane (Bruce Willis) is back. Sitting having a coffee at Washington Airport, he notices something not right. His investigations lead to some tampering of airport systems which in turn leads to a total take-over by mercenaries who are demanding the release of an extradited military general arriving at the airport in the next two hours.

To make their presence felt, the terrorists destroy a plane with over two hundred passengers on board so it's time for airport staff to co-operate. John McClane is NOT airport staff. He's a guy that can fit into air vents, climb through grates leading to runways and fend off machine-gun wielding soldiers with his bare hands.

It's up to him to make this airport safe again. What else is a man to do when he's in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  Video
Contract

A much improved transfer greets us with this second installment. The noticable improvment is the quality of the overall image even though it was made only two years after the original. The image is very clean and at times is up there with the best of the recent releases.

Shaprness is aplenty which also leads to aliasing rearing it's jaggered edges. Detail is a little subdued at times but there is still plenty to look at given the anamorphic transfer presented to us.

Color saturation is much richer than that seen in Die hard 1, without being too rich nor too dull.

  Audio
Contract

The soundtrack is also a better presented mix than the original film. It is clear from the outset that this is a proper mix rather than a bad mistake.

Dialogue is very clear and consistent with proper level matching across the entire soundstage. Bass is present although a little lacking at times. Surround usage is constantly providing an ambient soundfield which moves up a few nothces during the action filled sequences.

It's not the greatest of soundtracks though as some of the excessively long shoot-outs provide a harsh representation that becomes overbearing at times. It's a decent soundtrack for its time but nothing of todays calibre.

  Extras
Contract

Another basic of basics here. Nice menus, theatrical trailer and short promotional featurette.

  Overall  
Contract

The problem with this movie is that because everything is so much bigger, so is the size of your suspension of disbelief to compensate for it all.


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      And I quote...
    ""
    - Steve Koukoulas
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-505 Gold
    • TV:
          Hitachi CMT2979 68cm
    • Receiver:
          Onkyo TX-DS777 THX Select
    • Speakers:
          Peterson Labs 100Watts
    • Centre Speaker:
          Sherwood SC-60E
    • Surrounds:
          Sherwood LS-502
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
      Recent Reviews:
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