When Bruce Willis’ daughter Rumer shared a 15-second video of her dad as Detective John McClane on her Instagram account, the internet went abuzz with the expectation that a delayed sixth “Die Hard” installment was about to land in theaters.
But the “As one story ends, a new one begins. 10.18.20 #DieHardIsBack” teaser proved to be a two-minute Advance Auto Parts commercial that debuted during the Sunday-night telecast of an NFL game between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers. The auto parts company is promoting its new DieHard brand of car batteries.
The commercial might have been enough to pacify die-hard “Die Hard” fans. It is a high-budget, action-packed storyline with some familiar faces.
The nighttime storyline starts with McClane’s car not starting. He walks down a darkened street toward an Advance Auto Parts store and is waylaid by a menacing group of men — led by a goateed Hans lookalike. For most 65-year-old men, this would not end well.
But this is John McClane, ageless like Indiana Jones, so he crashes through the store window and is greeted by a female employee humming “Ode to Joy.” She says, “Welcome to Advance Auto Parts.” He points out the battery he needs for the car and asks for another way out, which turns out to be crawling through the ceiling air duct, complete with the whoosh of the falling vent cover.
He emerges back on the street only to get clipped by a black limo driven by —you guessed it— old pal Argyle. Cut to the bad guys following in a Humvee, the requisite car chase, gunshots and a crash on his way to install the battery, but not before McClane uses it to knock out a bad guy. As he does that, a backhoe approaches, but he makes like 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and tosses a grenade into the cabin.
A more cinematic film, titled “McClane,” has been on hold since the Disney-Fox merger and coronavirus pandemic. Yippie-ki-yay, “Die Hard” fans.
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