The original Die Hard is a perfect action movie.  It belongs in film school classes as an example of how to make a big, exciting, popular film without making something throw-away.  John McTiernan captured the perfect blend of suspense, action, and comedy when he turned the wisecracking guy from Moonlighting into an action movie hero.  Willis ushered in a new breed of movie hero--or at least a return to something a little more classic.  Action films in the 80s were dominated by the likes of Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Lundgren.  These were huge, muscle-bound guys that were so amped up that they weren't really relatable for typical moviegoers.  We might have admired those guys and what they did on the screen, but we didn't see ourselves in them.  

Enter Bruce Willis.  Here's a pretty normal guy, just a cop caught up in an extraordinary situation, putting his wits and his survival instinct to good use.  Die Hard does everything right--from isolating Willis from any real help (and without any shoes, ) to setting up character moments that pay off later in the movie.  There's no unnecessary exposition and the film never drags.  The little conversation about Holly's company-issued Rolex serves a purpose in characterizing her weasley co-worker and it establishes her position at Nakatomi.  When the watch is later unlatched to drop Hans to his death, it's a subtle moment--no one says "Time for you to drop out" or anything stupid--it's just a well-written way to tie things up.

Die Hard 2, on the other hand, takes most of what is good about the original and throws it out the window, opting instead for a lazy sequel approach. Sure, it's bigger and there are a couple of memorable shots/scenes, but watching the films back to back, I really realized how forced the second film is. There's a call back to Al, the cop who talks Willis through the first film, but it serves no purpose other than to give that character a cameo. We get to see the nosy reporter from the first film get knocked out again by Holly, but he doesn't wind up making the film any more tense and his insertion into the story doesn't have much of an effect on the plot. The airport is great setting for a caper, but it's almost too big, and the bulk of the movie consists of Willis getting from one place to another as he tries to stop the terrorists and figure out their plan.  When Willis mutters his "Yippie Kie A" line under his breath, it feels like the perfunctory insertion of a catchphrase where it worked so organically in the original.

I don't hate Die Hard 2 and I certainly DID enjoy seeing it on the big screen again, but it's the kind of sequel that I hate to see.  It seems to lack a basic understanding of why the first film worked so well, and in that it takes an original piece of cinema and turns it into a rote franchise.  Perhaps there never should have been a sequel--the characters themselves remark several times throughout the second one that these extraordinary things keep happening to them and they are right--what made the first one so cool was the unexpected nature of the conflict.  Once we've set up Willis as an action hero who gets in the middle of things, it's far less interesting to see where he's going to go.