Yippie-kye-ay.

John McClane is back for another installment of the popular action series in Live Free or Die Hard. Bruce Willis, who is on the senior side of 50, does a smash-bang job bringing one of his best characters back to life. No other man can make walking with a limp and bleeding from every orifice look so heroic and daring.

Even tacking on a PG-13 rating to an otherwise hard-core, foul-mouthed detective proved to be a smart idea. While the language is toned down, the action never stops, and more than once, you'll be teetering on the edge of your seat as McClane jumps through hoop after hoop and breaks rib after rib.

The film picks up years after the previous installment, taking the detective from New York on a road trip to Washington, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, and all over the East Coast. Justin Long (Accepted) tags along as a targeted computer hacker whom McClane must safely escort to the FBI before the hacker's buddies put a bullet in his head.

In a relatively more technologically driven plot for the Die Hard series, the enemy hackers have taken control of the traffic lights and cameras throughout the cities McClane meanders through. They watch him at every turn, manipulating the system to throw danger and mayhem at the duo around every street corner. While there is some CGI, it serves only to enhance the action sequences, not drive them.

And of course, it wouldn't be a Die Hard movie if it didn't somehow get personal. Enter McClane's daughter played (Mary Elizabeth Winstead of Sky High fame), who is of course placed life-threatening peril.

 

(Warning for the parents: There is a brief sexual situation near the film's opening that may not be suitable for the young or young-at-heart.)

Director Len Wiseman, who proved his touch with action moviemaking with the popular Underworld series, delivers a much grittier, more realistic action cop movie without all of the supernatural, unrealistic fighting moves, "bullet-path" slow-motion sequences, or huge CGI renderings that detract from a film's credibility to simply "look cool." Doesn't that describe most big-budget action movies these days?

The DVD comes in its theatrical version or unrated (the unrated version includes the theatrical release, as well). Of course, the unrated version has a significant greater volume of foul language (F-bombs like the Fourth of July--when the movie is set, incidentally) and violence. Also, the special features here are lacking in the single-disc release. Unless there are some super secret Easter Eggs in the menus, the only extra contained within is a commentary by Willis, Wiseman, and editor Nicolas De Toth. The two-disc special edition remedies this, however.

Live Free or Die Hard is a fantastic addition to the franchise and a good time for any fan of good, plot-driven action movies. Fitting for the Independence Day setting, the movie is all about saving the country and being a hero without reveling in the glory of it. Truly All-American, or at least what those words should mean in movie terms.
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