Yippee-ki-yay, folks: John McClane is back — and in a car battery commercial of all places. Today, Advance Auto Parts dropped a wildly epic commercial that finds Bruce Willis back in the saddle as his iconic Die Hard hero. The crossover makes sense, however, as the automotive market is highlighting a new line of — you guessed it — DieHard batteries.
Like the best blockbusters, the gist of the commercial is pretty simple: McClane is stuck in a rock and a hard place as he car breaks down. Fortunately, he’s near an Advance Auto Parts, where they just so happen to have those aforementioned DieHard batteries. The catch? He just so happens to face all of his old foes and even one of his former sidekicks.
Fans of the original series will no doubt notice a couple of familiar faces. The most obvious is the return of De’voreaux White, his Run DMC-loving limousine driver from John McTiernan’s 1988 original film. Also back from the Nakatomi Plaza is Clarence “And the quarterback is toast” Gilyard, aka Theo, who previously worked as Hans Gruber’s tech specialist.
Catch the commercial in full below. Not gonna lie: It’s a pretty awesome two minutes, and arguably the best slice of Die Hard we’ve seen since 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance. Here’s hoping we see some more adventures in the future. At the very least, we’d rather see McClane in these shorts than whatever prequel 20th Century was dreaming up years ago.
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