"Live Free or Die Hard" is the action movie at full-tilt over-drive. After a hiatus of 12 years, Bruce Willis returns as indestructible New York cop John McClane in this fourth episode of the highly popular franchise.

In the intervening years, McClane has taken some lumps in his personal life: He's divorced, estranged from his grown daughter and tired of his job.

Willis, a good actor with a keen camera sense, gives the NYPD detective a little self-doubt and vulnerability -- until the bullets and fists start to fly. Then he reverts to the ultimate tough guy who can sustain more blunt-force trauma than 50 lesser mortals.

The story begins with a computer shut-down at the FBI and the order to bring in some of the country's more notorious computer hackers. Justin Long plays Matt Farrell, one of the cyber whiz kids who McClane is ordered to pick up and deliver to the feds. Before you can say download, a squad of Euro-trash bad guys assaults Matt's apartment with ballistic glee. This puts Matt and McClane on the dodge. By the time they get to the nation's capital, an evil genius has started the process of shutting down the country's infrastructure. He's a disgruntled government whistle-blower played by Timothy Olyphant who wants revenge and a big payday at the same time.

Though the movie is unabashed popcorn escapism, it does make a topical observation concerning the FBI, the National Security Council, Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. So dysfunctional are these bureaucracies that the villain is given a free ride to disable the U.S. Only McClane and his nerdy sidekick can save the day.

Director Len Wiseman takes the series further into self-parody and the result is a hoot. McClane bounces off concrete, rides the wings of a fighter jet, takes down a helicopter with a car and survives the lethal kung fu of a beautiful ninja almost as invincible as he is. And that's just for starters. He's a grubby Homer Simpson counterpart to James Bond's suave, similarly-mythic and indestructible hero. Few can do this tarnished-knight business better than Willis, and Long plays well against it as the whipper-snapper reluctantly thrust into the path of sure destruction.

There's some smarty-pants banter between the odd-couple heroes but there's also some speechifying and stilted dialogue. But this isn't "My Dinner with Andre." Audiences won't be turning out to hear people talk.

The main attraction is the riot of buckling steel, crumbling concrete, shattering glass and exploding vehicles and the way the characters handle them.

Stunts drive the movie. And they are, in the words of Teri Hatcher in one of "Seinfeld's" more memorable episodes, spectacular.