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RE: Michael's Action Lase-O-Rama: Die Hard 2 (1991, CBS/FOX Video)
I definitely like this one, not as much as the first really - but it is great in its own way and adds in another of my favorite actors, Dennis Franz. I also really liked Barnes (Art Evans)in this one. I actually think Die Hard with a Vengeance is the best of the bunch, but that is a discussion to have in another month when you cover it.
I love that you already know I have this LaserDisc and am going to review it! LOL! :D
Uh-oh, we got ourselves a Samuel L. Jackson fan up in here...the shit may really hit the fan in another thirty days! How many times can @modernzorker use the phrase "motherfucker" in a single review? Will @blewitt be so offended he starts powering down in response?
Be here next month and find out the awful truth...
You know @randomwanderings, I've been thinking about your comment all day, and I think Barnes is one of the primary reasons why I like Die Hard 2 so much. There is no Barnes character in Die Hard. Leslie Barnes, in a way, is John McClane minus the combat ability.
Here's a guy who survives the massacre of an entire SWAT team, goes door-to-door with McClane to track down where Stuart and his men are hiding, comes up with multiple ideas for how they can thwart Stuart's takeover of the airport, manages to successfully implement the one Stuart's men didn't plan for, and keeps putting himself in harm's way long after any ordinary desk jockey would have called it quits. Barnes is a goddamn badass, and without his ingenuity a hell of a lot more people would have wound up splattered all over the runway.
Sure, in a straight-up fight he'd get his ass kicked--he has none of McClane's fortitude, stamina, training, cop instinct, or plain New York stubbornness. But put him in a battle of wits with literally anybody else in the movie and he dominates the playing field. I hope he got one hell of a Christmas bonus that year. :)
See, to me it is sort of a progression. Barnes is everything Sgt. Al Powell wanted to be in the original. He wanted to help more, but it wasn't really possible. Then they progress more into DHWAV into the perfect partner for John McClane - Zeus Carver. lol