"Live Free or Die Hard" *** (out of four): The fourth entry in the John McClane series finds Bruce Willis battling a group of high-tech cyber-terrorists who clearly haven't watched an action movie in two decades.

1988’s “Die Hard” was a study in simplicity, a veritable exercise in Aristotle’s Unities of time, place and action (a cop is trapped for one night in a building besieged by terrorists). It was also a movie that spawned an entire subgenre of "Die Hard on a..." imitators: "Die Hard on a Boat/Plane/Train" (“Under Siege”, “Passenger 57”, “Under Siege 2”). Each was of increasingly poor quality with the exception of the best of the bunch, 1994's "Speed" ("Die Hard on a Bus"). Amusingly, even the "Die Hard" franchise itself lost sight of its own gimmick with a host of ill-titled sequels. 1988’s “Die Hard 2: Die Harder” was “Die Hard at an Airport” and, I guess, 1995’s brain-teaser “Die Hard With a Vengeance” was “Die Hard in New York”. Now we have the fourth in the series with the appropriately messy title "Live Free or Die Hard" and, in the tradition of the series, this one would have to be called “Die Hard on the Internet”. This outing finds the franchise stripped of all its trademarks (supporting cast, director) with one very notable exception: Bruce Willis. Turns out Mr. Willis is all you need for a good “Die Hard” movie.

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