Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
John McClane is back and badder than ever, and this time he calls on the services of a young hacker in his bid to stop a ring of Internet terrorists intent on taking control of America's computer infrastructure.
Live Free or Die Hard is a competent but bloated action sequel that updates the franchise for the digital age with a cyber-terrorism premise. The plot is functional but relies heavily on implausible escalation and conveniences. Bruce Willis coasts on his familiar McClane persona while Justin Long's hacker sidekick is serviceable but not memorable; Timothy Olyphant's villain is underwritten. The action set-pieces are impressively staged (the Harrier jet sequence is audacious) but lean heavily on CGI excess over the grounded practicality of earlier entries. As a sequel it recycles the lone-cop-against-overwhelming-odds formula without meaningfully evolving it, and the cyber-terrorism hook, while timely, is handled superficially. The ending resolves with typical blockbuster convenience and lacks the scrappy ingenuity of the original trilogy's conclusions.