Unlike its R-rated predecessors, "Live Free or Die Hard" is PG-13, but it's still as violent as the 1988 movie that introduced John McClane (Bruce Willis) as a cop with a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, it's probably more violent, with a higher body count and a terrorist plot designed to drive a stake through all that Americans hold dear. Sophisticated hackers mess with the nation's transportation system, hijack the airwaves, manipulate Wall Street and pull the plug on electricity and other utilities, cell-phone service and text messages.
The cyber-terrorists are executing a "fire sale," as in "Everything must go." It's like "The China Syndrome" for the nation's computerized infrastructure. And it's up to McClane, branded a "Timex watch in a digital age" (which would make him kin to a couple of the "Ocean's Thirteen" boys, called "analog players in a digital world"), and a young computer geek named Matt Farrell (Justin Long) to make sure everything doesn't go up in flames.
McClane is doing a little surveillance on his college-age daughter and her boyfriend when he gets the call to pick up Farrell in New Jersey and escort him to Washington, D.C., for questioning.
They become accidental partners, of sorts, as they navigate a brave new world where algorithms and keystrokes can bring the nation to its knees. Nothing like typing and downloading to get the pulse racing. It's been 19 years since the first "Die Hard," and McClane still has his signature line of "Yippee-ki-yay," but he long ago lost his hair and the wife, Bonnie Bedelia, who worked in the Los Angeles skyscraper taken over by terrorists on Christmas Eve.
Bedelia slugged an intrusive TV reporter, but this time, one of the henchmen is a woman (Maggie Q) who gives as good as she gets. She and McClane punch, kick, pound and try to maim or kill each other in a sequence as disconcerting as it is progressive. Timothy Olyphant plays the villain calling the shots, and while he can match the malevolent acts of past "Die Hard" adversaries Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons, he's not as deliciously devilish as they were.
Or maybe he just lacks gravitas or a plummy voice. A hacker nicknamed Warlock who lives in his mother's basement is portrayed by a famous fanboy but a terrible actor. On the plus side, however, New Zealand native Cliff Curtis brings a freshness to his role as an FBI official, a far cry from the agents of the first picture who blithely calculated hostage losses and acted like cowboys.
The wisecracks here are thinner although the stunts are, as usual, spectacular, with a car doubling as a missile aimed at a chopper, a jet fighter chasing a vehicle like a vulture circling its prey, and lots of explosions, fatal falls and gunplay. They are the movie's strength and its downfall. "Live Free or Die Hard," directed by Len Wiseman ("Underworld," "Underworld: Evolution") and written by Mark Bomback, starts off with an improbable but cautionary premise that will resonate in these post 9/11, botched Katrina response times.
A message delivered with a series of expertly edited public speeches is inspired. But, like a truck teetering over a bridge that's been sheared off, it wobbles and then falls into a series of stunts and chases. Unlike its R-rated predecessors, "Live Free or Die Hard" is PG-13, but it's still as violent as the 1988 movie that introduced John McClane (Bruce Willis) as a cop with a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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