June is almost over and it marks the halfway point of Hollywood’s blitz of epic blockbuster movies. So far this reviewer and others at the Daily Eastern News has dealt with super-heroes, pirates, ogres, and zombies. These movies had their positives aspects. At the end of the day, though, watching all of this can get a bit exhaustive and predictable.

What is needed is a film that can still entertain us but not have someone who cling to walls or says arghh every 20 seconds. This is where “Live Free or Die Hard” comes in.

The latest part in the series of films dealing with the trouble that Bruce Willis’s iconic John McClane gets into. The film deals with the one thing he may not be able to fight, computers and Internet terrorists.

The terrorists in this film employ a number of computer hackers and henchman to bring down the United States computer infrastructure. With the government unable to do anything, it is up to Willis and the standard wisecracking computer savvy sidekick played by Justin Long to save the day.

The film uses a lot of standard plot devices from action movies, but they still are used well in this film. Instead of just witty sarcasm by the sidekick and all action by the hero, the idea is given more depth to enhance the characters. Long and Willis’ characters contrast each other almost perfectly and reflect the changes and technological challenges Willis has to overcome.

Willis symbolizes the conservative model of the old generation who believes in the government and can’t grasp the technological environment. Long reflects the 21st century youth who believe some anarchy could be a good thing and hates the government.

They play off each other well and make a good movie team. Willis even has more depth, as the hero cop who regrets being divorced, having his kids ignore him, wishes someone else was around to save the day instead of him.

The villains in this movie are hit and miss. The cyber terrorists do a lot of damage and bring chaos but aren’t particularly threatening at some points. The main villain Thomas Gabriel played by Timothy Olyphant is a more human villain not because he is more threatening or dangerous than the previous Die Hard villains, but because he shows a good range of emotions like fear and sadness than is usually seen in the traditional villain.

The other villains provide for interesting fight scenes using gritty hand-to-hand combat from The Bourne Identity films and an acrobatic skill called urban thrashing that resembles the action from a Spider-Man film. The rest of the action scenes are fantastic spectacles that keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

Director Len Wiseman, who made his mark with the “Underworld” films about vampires and werewolves, handles the film well by paying homage to the first film with jokes the fans of the films will get. In addition, old characters, like Willis’ daughter Lucy played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, give the help the identity of the film; the character of Lucy is just as tough and cocky as Willis’ character. Overall, the film suffers very little and is one the best movies so far this summer