Herald rating: * * * *
KEY POINTS:
In case you're wondering, yes Bruce is still up to it. It might be 12 years since he last got his singlet dirty in the third in the series, Die Hard with a Vengeance.
And despite having saved quite a few good people and killed quite few bad
people on those past escapades, his John McClane is still just an ordinary detective. He's still trying to be a family man despite his marriage long having gone the way of his hair, and still trying to do the right thing - even when inevitably he's in the wrong place at the right time.
It might be that Willis is too old to be playing action heroes. But there's something about his easy familiarity with the character - and the way he answers punches with another weary punchline - that still makes him hugely entertaining to watch.
That's even when the movie's extended stuntathon outstays its welcome. Or when it veers from the impressively ridiculous (McLane downs a helicopter with a car "because he ran out of bullets") to the excessively ludicrous (McLane suffers a motorway collapse under the friendly fire of a vertical take-off fighter jet).
As that name suggests - though it was given the brawnier Live Free or Die Hard in the US - it's about computer stuff.
McLane has to escort young hacker Matt Farrell (Long) from New York to the FBI in Washington after he becomes a supernerd suspect in what is looking like a looming cyber-attack on the computers which, like, run the country.
Only, it's not as simple as that. And soon McLane is supplying the brawn to his geek's brains as they odd-couple it and get caught between the confused G-men (led by Cliff Curtis) and the real villains (led by the steely Timothy Olyphant of Deadwood fame and his martial artist girlfriend Maggie Q).
Like the third Die Hard, which ran around New York, this lacks the claustrophobia which ratcheted up the tension on the previous films, especially 1988's classic first instalment. Though there are hints of it when McLane drops an SUV down a lift shaft and later has to convince one of the henchpersons that the stair-vaulting wall-climbing "parkour" thing that keeps cropping up in action movies is just so 2006.
Fortunately, the film isn't all about the bash. The double-act between Willis and Long, which could have made for an ongoing annoying inter-generational squabble, has its own smart and easy chemistry, as does the involvement of McLane's daughter Lucy, taking the place of her regularly imperiled mother from the first two films.
It's been a long time coming, it takes a little too long to do its thing, and you won't remember a bit of it afterwards. But despite its apparent software upgrade Die Hard 4.0 still delivers action that feels more physically thrilling than a virtual retread of past glories.
Cast: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Maggie Q, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Director: Len Wiseman
Rating: M (violence & offensive language)
Running time: 130 mins
Screening: SkyCity, Hoyts, Berkeley
Verdict: Mr Yippee-ky-ay is back to his old tricks. And what tricks they are.
