Live Free or Die Hard

Bruce Willis is older, balder and a lot more banged up in his fourth outing as John McClane, the resilient old-school cop and sand in the gears of dastardly plots by evil geniuses. This being the age of excess, the fourth "Die Hard" escalates the stakes from the high-rise hijacking of the original film to the complete structural breakdown of the nation, masterminded by a single supergenius (a blandly intense Timothy Olyphant) out for the biggest cyber-crime theft in history. Luckily this analog sentinel has a smart-ass hacker (Justin Long) to help him navigate the digital frontier. Like a lot of cyber-age thrillers, the film treats computer hacking as a kind of cyber-magic, where the gifted can hack a spell in seconds with a few keystrokes pounded out like some voodoo drumbeat. And it relies heavily on the distraction of action to hide the potholes of the plot, which director Len Wiseman fulfills with a mix of impressive stunt work (love the gymnast hit men) and mostly well-designed digital effects that escalate into high-concept overkill as the film keeps topping itself (a Harrier jet chasing a big rig down an elevated freeway?). But there's still something cinematically satisfying in seeing the veteran street cop plugging along like a dogged boxer up against a younger and stronger opponent. He's no superhero, just a veteran held together by his scar tissue and roused to action because he's the guy in the place to do it. Maggie Q, Cliff Curtis, Kevin Smith and Mary Elizabeth Winstead co-star.

The film is available in full-screen PG-13 and wide-screen unrated editions, both with commentary by Willis, Wiseman and editor Nicolas De Toth. Willis and Wiseman talk about the development of the script and character relationships, and Wiseman and De Toth spell out the differences between the theatrical and unrated versions (from language to excessive gunfire). Even with the dead patches, it's pretty interesting. There's also a music video. The unrated two-disc edition (which also features the theatrical cut) is highlighted by the feature-length "Analog Hero in a Digital World: Making of Live Free or Die Hard," a fairly comprehensive production documentary in 10 parts, as well as the 23-minute featurette "Yippee-Ki-Yay Mother F*****!" with co-star and filmmaker Smith (a longtime fan of the franchise) interviewing Willis, and a six-minute promotional featurette made for the Fox Movie Channel. Also available in Blu-ray format.