Hard to believe, but true: once upon a time, the modern action blockbuster didn’t exist. Armageddon? Deep Impact? The Rock? Time was, those movies didn’t get made. Sure, Star Wars and Indiana Jones were contributing factors, but they were more about the summer blockbuster. As far as the action version, you have to go back to Christmas of 1988. There’s this wise-cracking cop in an office building full of terrorists, and stuff that blows up, and Beethoven’s Ninth playing. And sure, that’s yawn-worthy now, but the writing and the acting for Die Hard still stand up, despite decades of mostly pale imitators. (Also, it’s the first time I was aware of surround sound in theaters.) And then it had a couple of sequels. Which were fine and all, with the explosions and the wisecracking, but they never really stood out to me in the same way.

Now, however… here’s the best way I can explain Live Free or Die Hard. The people who wrote it and filmed it were people who also think Die Hard was the definitive action movie, and they wanted to make a sequel worthy of the name. Sure, the action is over the top. It’s supposed to be, it’s an action blockbuster. But it’s not over the top in such a way that you find yourself wondering how we’re supposed to believe anyone could ever do that stuff. (Like, say, Rambo sequels.) There’s definitely one sequence that is over the top; I rolled my eyes pretty hard. But John McClane is never superhuman. He’s tough, and he’s luckier than his fair share, but mostly he’s just taking his only option and running with it instead of giving up, and that guy? That guy is pretty much what heroes are.

Also, the plot is more of a sequel to the original than either of the other sequels. I know that the third one was specifically about a guy who wanted revenge for Alan Rickman’s untimely demise. Even still, the fourth one is a much better sequel, plot-wise as well as thematically. Now that everyone in the country who isn’t me has seen the Transformers more times than you can shake a pointed stick at, I say go see Die Hard 4. Unless you didn’t like the original for some reason? That would be weird, but you won’t like this one either, in that unlikely case. Otherwise, you should be golden.

And I’ll go contritely see the Transformers. Because at this point, I’m kind of an embarrassment over here.