Yippee Ki-Yay
John McClane – played of course by Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies – is one of the greatest action heroes of all time, if not the greatest.
Well, the good news is John McClane is back. The bad news is that it is in a commercial for a brand of car batteries.
Bruce Willis has reprised the role for a two-minute, big-budget advert for Advanced Auto Parts. The commercial sees John McClane needing a new car battery to defeat some terrorists, and conveniently picking up a DieHard branded one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7kFGGFI9Xo&feature=youtu.be
The short does not just see Bruce Willis return to the franchise. It also features appearances from De’voreaux White, who played McClane’s limo driver Argyle in the original movie, and Clarence Gilyard, who was the very 1980s computer-wiz-terrorist-hacker Theo.
Beethoven’s ‘Ode To Joy’ is also featured, which is a recurring trope of the Die Hard movies.
The short was teased on October 17th, when Bruce’s daughter Rummer Willis tweeted a ten-second clip of the advert with the caption “Die Hard is back.”
? #DieHardisBack #ad pic.twitter.com/UHn8RSBGP0
— Rumer Willis (@TheRue) October 17, 2020
Bruce Willis first played John McClane in the original Die Hard in 1998. Prior to that film, Willis was primarily known as a comedy star from the TV show Moonlighting.
John McClane would return for two sequels, Die Hard 2 in 1990, and Die Hard With A Vengence in 1995. Both are generally regarded as fitting follow-ups to the original, and great action movies in their own right.
Then, after 12 years of inaction, we finally got a fourth installment in 2007, with Live Free or Die Hard. While it was a reasonably enjoyable, it did not reach the heights of the original trilogy for most fans, and the PG-13 rating meant that John McClane could not say the word that comes after “Yippee Ki-Yay” properly (it was muffled by a gunshot).
The final cinematic appearance of John McClane so far came in 2013 with A Good Day To Die Hard. It is not a good movie.
