Solid Action Revival w/ Willis in Top Form in Signature Role

Rating: 7/10 (30 March 2013)

(Very minor and mild spoilers here, but I don't want to take any chances as what's too much and what's cool w/ IMDb. Nobody likes being blacklisted.)
I was so happy when the "Die Hard" franchise returned after a dozen years and delivered a solid entry. You could tell they worked hard to make this one fresh and clever and original, unlike the rotten recent last one.
Though it finally goes over the top w/ CGI in the last big action set-piece with the truck and the Harrier jet, up to that point "Live Free or Die Hard" is loaded with impressive stunt work and hand-to-hand combat that is real and physical, while the plot taps into a very primal yet modern fear of our technology being taken away and turned against us. There's also that great video ransom threat using a mash-up of U.S. Presidents' speeches to deliver the terrorists' messages, which is truly original and funny and smart yet unsettling.
Bruce Willis settles right back into his signature role, earning both laughs and empathy with John McClane's mordant blue-collar sense of humor, and getting dirtier and bloodier and sweatier as the story escalates, taking a ton of abuse and showing pain and suffering but persevering. Justin Long is basically the Mac guy from the commercials transplanted into the "Die Hard" franchise, and he makes the perfect foil for McClane's very much analog sensibility. Timothy Oliphant is a worthy and formidable villain with twisted but just-a-little-bit sympathetic motives; he and Willis do a good job re-creating the cat-and-mouse connection over phones and walkie-talkies and video chats that the original "Die Hard" delivered so effectively with Willis and Alan Rickman (not that anybody's EVER going to be as good as Alan Rickman).
Not a classic, but a very solid three-star action movie, a worthy addition to the franchise, and probably the best of the "comeback" action flicks that have popped up over the last decade. It's really too bad that the good will inspired by this critical and box office success lead to the decision to churn out the quickie dud "A Good Day to Die Hard," which will likely snuff the franchise and end it on a very sour note.