Remakes, sequels, prequels — McHollywood keeps churning out the same old fast, reliable and formulaic fare, and boy, do we keep lapping 'em up. Can’t get enough of them high collateral action, as it were.

And so, just one year short of its 20th anniversary, the Die Hard franchise returns to consumers its appropriately named product, John McClane, in a fourth, and perhaps not final, installation, called Die Hard 4.0.

Four Point O?

Oh my, very computerese, this, as if what we are getting with the latest Die Hard movie is a software update, with the bugs (one imagines) ironed out, beaten to a pulp, machine-gunned, firebombed. What, does the McClane thingie require rebooting, when, really, all that is required of him is to scamper around and put boot up terrorist butts double-quick?

With a wisecrack or two. And a yippee-kay-yay, too.

It goes to show that even someone from the school of hard knocks has to keep up with them dang computer and nerdy IT whatchamacallit. In this latest outing, Bruce Willis’s best-known character finds himself caught up in yet another audacious hijack situation — this time by a group of terrorists who are as well versed in military hardware as they are in IT warfare.

The former, of course, is not a problem for NYC cop McClane, who we all know can blow up whatever he’s supposed to be protecting just as efficaciously as the baddies he tries to prevent from doing just that.

Well, better him than them. Besides, he always means well, doesn’t he?

Where McClane is not at is the IT end of things. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, so they say — not someone like McClane. Especially not low-tech, handson, high-impact McClane. Wouldn’t do to see him go nerdy on us, in any case.

This is where the screenwriters dig into the old Hollywood bag of tricks and come up with ... the Odd Couple Combo.

To McClane’s brawn, they have added the IT savvy of Matt Farrell (Justin Long), college student, programmer, hacker, and someone who’s obviously never watched a Die Hard movie, because, when the hard-boiled cop coolly saves his ass for the umpteenth time, he has to ask, “Why are you not afraid? Have you done something like this before, man?”

Where have you been, dude?

This little wink at itself aside, the movie is pretty earnest about the task at hand: namely, serving up superlative mayhem in a popcorn tone.

Director Len Wiseman of Underworld fame is not noted for his sense of humour, or for complex, finely shaded characters.

He’s most expressive in ballistic mode, which often he is in. Yes, the man is well qualified to helm a fourth installation of a franchise that lost its wit and novelty at number two.

In Wiseman’s hands, Die Hard 4.0 is a serviceable summer movie in all its loud, frantic, explosive incarnation. It ain’t particularly smart and not at all visceral, but it gets the job done.

The movie begins sedately enough. McClane, estranged from his family, gets into a shouting match with his daughter (Final Destination 3's Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and her over-amorous boyfriend. Right, save the world again and again, and this is your crummy lot in life?

Just as he is about to call it a night, McClane gets a call from HQ to pick up a hacker. Bad idea. You’d think his superiors would know better by now… Pretty soon, what is supposed to be a routine, by-the-way assignment turns into a nationwide security crisis.

Assassins intervene. Bullets fly. Bombs go off. Tyres screech. Bodies hurl through the air. Oh well, just another day in John McClane’s action-packed life. Turns out, home-grown terrorists, with the aid of pernicious, French-speaking gunmen (perhaps sore that French Fries has become Freedom Fries — how appropriate! — in Bush’s America), have taken over the, urm, computer systems that run the country and causing a meltdown.

The power grid goes down, traffic goes bonkers, the stock market goes haywire.

Thanks to his genius hacker sidekick, McClane is tutored in the ways of high-tech warfare as he applies his trusty, knuckle-hard techniques on the baddies in increasingly ludicrous situations. Hot Asian babe Maggie Q trades kungfu kick with him, helicopters dog him. They even send in an F-35, a fighter jet that can hover like the British Harrier to finish him off.

All to no avail, of course. Really, now, is there anything that can stop tenacious, pitbull-like McClane? I can’t think of anything — except maybe Demi Moore, bald and in G.I. Jane mode. That might just do the trick, and it would be a heck of an idea for a fourth sequel, no?

I’d be first in line.

Meanwhile, Point O or no Point O, bear with McClane doing the same old, same old.