IF you're going to keep milking an ancient cash cow, you might as well milk it for all it's worth - which is exactly what Bruce Willis & co do

Rating: 6/10 (13 September 2007)

In the fourth instalment of the Die Hard series, John McClane is caught up in a wicked game of cyber terrorism when asked to transport young computer hacker Matt to the department of homeland security. After an assassination attempt on both men at MAtt's apartment, the conspiracy becomes reality as an elite group of cyber terrorists attempt to shut down America's computer infrastructure and bring the country to its knees. Their only hope is John McClane shooting the hell out of everyone, including logic, originality but sadly not cliché.
Whilst there is some fine action in Die Hard 4.0 to please even the most cynical of cinema dwellers, the definitive arm that shielded the Die Hard franchise from ham-fisted hokum has now unclutched itself from the franchise. In the original Die Hard - John McClane was an everyman. An ordinary schmo, who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is made abundantly clear from the first frame occupied by My Willis that McClane is now a walking monolith with god like tendencies, that no amount of criminal minds can figure out. In this movie alone our protagonist is thrown out of a speeding car, falls out of a jet fighter into a the back of a lorry taxi, gets shot at and walks through a whole host of things that diminish any sense of believability in the subject. It is credit then, to the film's hugely entertaining action set-pieces, that none of this bothered me to any great extent. It may look like a thousand other action movies, but it doesn't slug along quite as slowly.