The video: More than 26 years after the debut of John Hughes' hit film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off — in which a charming teen cuts school in the most epic of fashions — star Matthew Broderick is playing hooky again in an ad for the Honda CR-V that will air during the Super Bowl. After a vague mini-teaser went viral last week, Honda has released a full-length version of the ad (see clip below), which was directed by The Hangover's Todd Phillips and is littered with winking references to the 1986 film. After Broderick wakes up and calls in sick to a film shoot, he spends the day joyriding in his Honda CR-V car. Other echoes of the movie: The instantly recognizable bass line of Yello's "Oh Yeah," the droll repeating of Broderick's name, and, of course, an impromptu song and dance performed on a parade float. Even the commercial's kicker is one the movie's most famous lines: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
The reaction: The ad is "awesome," says Dave Thier at Forbes. Broderick "shines with the same mischievousness of the original." Really? I found the ad "worse than I expected," says David Haglund at Slate. The Bueller references all "tend toward the ham-handed," and it's painful to watch Honda "mercilessly mooching" from a beloved film. Of course, says Tim Nudd at Ad Week, some people will be bummed that last week's snippet was not teasing a sequel to the movie, but at least "Broderick doesn't sully the original film's reputation here. Quite the opposite — this is how a tribute should look." See for yourself:
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