Die Hard 2: Die Harder

Once again, we join John McClane on Christmas week. This time he's at Dulles airport in Washington, D.C., picking up his wife from the airport. Over the past year, he's moved from New York City to L.A. to live with his wife and children, and once again, they are one happy family. He and his daughters are in D.C. visiting Holly's parents, and she is about to join them.

Long story short, terrorists take over the control tower and start 'teaching lessons' by crashing planes.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me explain...

John sees man with gun. Man with gun sees John seeing him. Man with gun runs away. John chases man with gun. Man with gun shoots in John's general direction. Man with gun quickly discovers that this is a bad idea. Man with gun leaves the airport...in a bodybag.

From there, John goes to airport security. Turns out, the head of airport security is too ignorant to even unholster his weapon. With John's help, they ID the very dead suspect only to find out that the guy has been dead for two years, according to the Department of Defense. That's when the entire control tower goes dark.

You see, the world's most wanted drug dealer is headed to Dulles on a government aircraft. Unfortunately, some higher-up US officials are in cahoots with him and are plotting to capture him and take him back to his own soil where he can hide and continue his drug dealings. To do this, they have set up camp at a church not too far from the airport and they've taken over tower controls. 'Each time you try to interfere, we'll teach you *bleeps* a lesson,' said their leader.

Meanwhile, since the runways are all down, several commercial airliners are circling above the airport. At first, they think nothing of it -- it's probably just a technical difficulty. But, when the passengers get restless and fuel runs low, an over-ambitious reporter taps into the cockpit frequency, finds out what's going on, and releases the story for the world to hear. Panic ensues, people start freaking out on the ground and in the air...all that jazz.

FIND OUT HOW IT ENDS!!

Bruce Willis holds true to his character with the bad-boy New York cop attitude, and once again, I LOVED HIM!! His wife, Holly, and the overly-ambitious news reporter are both played by the same characters as in Die Hard 1, and I don't think it could have been played any other way.

4 and a half stars. Yippee-ki-ay.

The Brothers Grimm

I've always loved fairy tales. When I was younger, I would beg my grandma to read to me from her book of fairy tales. Even now, whenever I come across that book, I read it from cover to cover. Since I enjoy them so much, I greatly enjoyed The Brothers Grimm. This movie is a fabulous combination of fairy tales, one that story-lovers everywhere should love.

Jake and Will Grimm are brothers who live in French-occupied Germany, and are complete scam artists. Using Jake's knowledge of old legends and Will's charm and talent for speaking and acting, the two brothers feed on people's superstitions. For example, at the beginning of the movie, a small town has called the Grimms in to dispose of a 'witch' that has been tormenting the town. Jake and Will (along with their two assistants) stage the killing of 'the witch' and make a ton of money doing it. This is what they do all over the place and they are famous for it.

Unfortunately for the two brothers, the French government finds out that they are nothing but imposters. They can either be boiled to death in a big vat of water or complete a small assignment for the French.

It wouldn't make sense for them to choose death, because that wouldn't make a very good movie. Obviously, they choose to go and do the French assignment. They are sent to a small village on the edge of a wood that is claimed to be 'enchanted'. The townspeople have a problem -- ten of their little girls have been taken away by some...thing. The brothers Grimm have to go into the wood and find out where these girls went, and what took them.

With the help of Angelika, a young woman who lives in the village, they venture into the forest and look for the girls. Still relying on superstition, the brothers try to stage an 'exorcism' of the 'enchantments', but they soon realize that the forest really is enchanted, and there really is a deep and sinister plot that is a fairy tale come true. The brothers must

I loved how this movie incorporated so many different fairy tales to tell one story. For example, Little Red Riding Hood and Gretel from 'Hansel and Gretel' were two of the girls that got abducted, and in kidnapping the girls, the perpetrators pricked their fingers to make them fall asleep, just like in 'Sleeping Beauty'. Angelika, who turned out the be the twelfth abducted girl, had to be awakened by true love's first kiss, and that would awaken the rest of the girls. Also, the 'Mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-who's-the-fairest-one-of-all' was put into the plot very nicely.

The animation and camera work were really awesome. I loved the way the trees could move on their roots. Another cool effect was the way the wolf could turn into a man. I also really enjoyed the humorous air of the movie. It was really quite funny -- Heath Ledger and Matt Damon make an awesome team on-screen. I loved the characters that played the French antagonists...they were really funny.

3 and a half stars. It's ok. I guess they went a little overboard on the complexity.