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Both Die Hard 2 and Lethal Weapon 2 begin in medias res with a whoop and a holler (Riggs’s in delight with he and Murtaugh in hot pursuit of a speeding car, McClane’s in despair as he attempts to prevent his in-laws’ illegally parked car from being towed by airport security) and both immediately establish the tone for the rest of the film. Gibson’s mania and Glover’s quietly simmering stress captures and reassures that the balance of tension and aggravation (and love) remains the same for the partners. In a rare subversion of clichés, this car chase isn’t simply an unrelated action spectacle to kick off the film in high gear. It sets in motion the rest of the plot - an attempt to nail some South African diplomats engaging in skullduggery while hiding behind “diplomatic immunity.” (In a too neat twist towards the end, a tossed off line by the chief enforcer of the film’s villain reveals a link to events prior to those in the first Lethal Weapon.)

McClane’s skill at somehow being in the wrong place at the wrong time is reaffirmed. The heavy snowfall and Christmas week mayhem at the airport are established as counterpoints to the sunny Christmas Eve in Los Angeles and claustrophobia of the mostly one setting of the first film. McClane battles on conveyor belts, moving walkways, annexes, Butting heads with airport security also indicates that once again McClane will be fighting the good fight while running up against asshats, protective of their space and secure in their (usually incorrect and limited) knowledge. For me, the first Die Hard was undercut by such stupidity displayed by the characters portrayed by Paul Gleason, Hart Bochner, William Atherton, Robert Davi, and Grand L. Bush. Having a whole host of venal and/or stupid characters is a needless exercise in excess to push the audience on to McClane’s side (as if that was necessary).

Die Hard 2 flirts with repeating this mistake (through new characters portrayed by Dennis Franz, Fred Dalton Thompson, and John Amos) but tones down their rhetoric, and brings most of them around in the end. Instead. McClane has to fight against his “celebrity” achieved in the wake of his actions in Die Hard and the suspicions of the ill informed around him that he is into showboating. And in the best nod to the first film, McClane starts out the film in a heavy coat and ungainly winter sweater but by the end is once again the same grimy t-shirted action hero from the first film, snow flurries be damned.

I mentioned that Lethal Weapon 2 is significantly more cartoonish than the first and this is partly because the relationship between Riggs and Murtaugh (which even with 25 years hindsight is still the most compelling aspect of the first film) isn’t unfolding for the first time and there isn’t a lot of additional nuance to be added. The action is no more or less cartoonish but the conviction of the human element added considerable gravitas to the first film. What struck me in re-watching it last week was the one early scene with Glover in the bathtub where he wears a soon-to-be-shorn beard and seems exponentially sexier for having it. There isn’t any way Gibson/Riggs could have competed with that.

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