One good thing about it: it makes me want to crank some CCR.

Rating: 6/10 (12 January 2016)

The "Die Hard" franchise gets reinvented for the technology-driven 21st century in this long but somewhat diverting action picture. Bruce Willis is in fine form as terminally tough and cranky NYC senior detective John McClane. He ends up having yet another of his trademark REALLY bad days when he agrees to do a favour for the FBI. His task is to pick up a hacker named Matthew Farrell (Justin Long), and bring him to the authorities in DC. What McClane doesn't know is that Farrell was exploited by psychotic techies, led by cyber terrorist mastermind Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), who want to shut down the whole country.
The formula was already beginning to wear thin by this point. While it is fun to see Willis do his wisecracking, tougher than thou routine, the material isn't as entertaining (as topical as it may be). Part of the problem here is that the bad guys sort of lack personality. Most of them, save maybe for Thomas' henchwoman / girlfriend Mai (the sexy Maggie Q) are just standard issue goons. As directed by Len Wiseman, the movie is never, ever boring - I give it credit for hitting the ground running - but it ends up being pretty damn stupid. In these movies, we always expect McClane to turn into some sort of superman who handles the problems almost single handedly, but that aspect gets pushed to another level here, with an absurdly over the top finale. "Live Free or Die Hard" is slickly made, as far as it goes, but feels more generic than the previous entries.
Long is good as the kind of character who the viewer might dislike at first: he's annoying, but after a while, he begins to "grow a pair", as they say, and proves himself worthy. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is fairly spunky as the now-grown Lucy McClane. The consistently solid Cliff Curtis does his best as a no nonsense federal agent. Olyphant is usually money in the bank, but his villain is rather boring and unmemorable. Filmmaker Kevin Smith is somewhat amusing in the role of a very stereotypical loser / master hacker.
This kills 129 minutes in entertaining enough fashion, but is more for the undemanding action fan than truly discerning viewers.
Six out of 10.