Bruce Willis returns for his fourth go around as detective John McClane in the awkwardly titled Live Free or Die Hard. (Well, I guess it’s no dumber a title than Die Harder.) This time out he has to protect a geeky computer hacker (Justin Long) from a bunch of wormy cyber-terrorists led by the king of the smug pricks, Timothy Olyphant who’s intent on shutting down America’s computer systems. As in the previous entries, Willis dispatches the terrorists using his wits and well timed one-liners while getting out of increasingly hairy predicaments.

While director Len (Underworld) Wiseman keeps things moving at a brisk pace, the film is unfortunately hamstringed by a gratuitous PG-13 rating which makes the film not as “Hard” as the other flicks. Willis does blow away several slimy baddies in pretty novel ways, but alas is unable to say his immortal trademark wisecrack, “Yippe ki-ay motherfucker!” without getting an R rating. It’s a sad state of affairs when Willis can gun down 70 people or so in a movie but can’t say the word “Fuck” in a sentence.

Despite the PG-13 handicap, LFODH is still great entertainment and a terrific action movie, but ultimately, it can’t quite measure up to the first three. There’s a veritable buffet of action (the best being Willis’ knock down drag out fight with Maggie Q), some pretty funny stuff (like Kevin Smith’s extended cameo), and a few gleefully over the top moments (like Willis going one on one with a jet), but in the end the fuzzier, gentler Die Hard just isn’t in the same league as the other three.