You won't be disappointed!

Strong and Moving!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Sheik Abdul ben Falafel (Jamie Farr) needs to win the Cannonball race for the family name and puts up the money. He recruits Dr Nikolas Van Helsing (Jack Elam) in his car. There are the beautiful Jill Rivers (Susan Anton) and Marcie Thatcher (Catherine Bach) in their Lamborghini. JJ McClure (Burt Reynolds) and Victor (Dom DeLuise) pretend to be in the military while Betty (Marilu Henner) and Veronica (Shirley MacLaine) join them pretending to be nuns. There are Jackie Chan and Richard Kiel in the Mitsubishi supercar. Mel Tillis and Tony Danza is driving with an orangutan. Blake (Dean Martin) and Fenderbaum (Sammy Davis Jr.) are back looking to score in different ways.Most of the gang are back. The formula is more of the same. Is that wrong? Not automatically. The original has the fun of discovery and being new. This one is less than even a lesser sequel. The story tries to be too complicated which only detracts from the simple pleasures of watching an orangutan giving the finger. The racing is barely shown. It's a silly franchise and this is stupider than expected. Dom and Burt continue to be an outtake machine but even the post-credit aren't as funny. There is a joy in the original that seems to be missing here. It's more of the same but so much less.

From the closing titles it looks like the cast had some fun, and watching the bloopers during the end credits is the only time you'll find yourself laughing for the whole of this awful, overlong sequel.Original producer Albert S. Ruddy and original director Hal Needham both return and co-script with Harvey Miller on what is a big misfire. Brock Yates' first up concept was far too thin to be stretched into a second feature, and the result is a real yawn which produces some downright terrible gags. One of the worst moves was bringing on board the chimp, ala "Every Which Way But Loose". What a drag.Burt Reynolds, Dom De Luise, Sammy Davis Junior, Dean Martin, Jackie Chan and Jamie Farr all return, and they're joined by Telly Savalas, Shirley MacLaine, Frank Sinatra and Jim Nabors. I can't believe there was more after this flop.Sunday, January 12, 1997 - Video

This film has no race and no chase. Okay there is a race but it has really nothing to do with the movie. The first film of course is all about "The Cannonball Run", which is an illegal race from coast to coast, written by Brock Yates who, along with director Hal Needham, actually drove an ambulance across America - and it's Yates who invented the Cannonball Run. In the original, Burt and Dom use the very same ambulance; now we have a sequel which isn't written by Yates, and is as bad a sequel as I've yet to witness on screen. As mentioned, the actual coast to coast race has little to do with anything this time around. Instead there's a lame subplot about mobsters trying to hijack Jamie Farr's character, an Arab with tons of oil money who this time around is funding the prize at the finish line. So basically this is a comic mobster film with a bunch of actors thrown in who are driving cars. Jack Elam, who is incredible in the first film, is thrown in as wallpaper. Burt and Dom are horrible and lazy; you can tell they were just doing the film for a paycheck. Shirley Maclaine and Marilu Henner play actresses dressed as nuns, and we have to sit through people doing double-takes as these impostor penguins curse in public. Boring. Horrible. Jackie Chan is even ruined this time around. In the first film Roger Moore plays a guy who thinks he's Roger Moore, and thus he drives a gadget filled car, ala Bond. This time around, Chan, who had some gadgets of his own in the original, has even more gadgets as he's basically replacing the Moore/Bond character from the original. And his driver is Richard Kiel, best known as Bond nemesis "Jaws". Chan's car even goes under water, just like Bond's car in "The Spy Who Loved Me" (which featured Kiel). Other contestants include an ape teamed up with Tony Danza. All I have to ask Tony is: Didn't "Going Ape" teach you not to work with primates? Jamie Farr's character is ruined because he's too involved; his sheik was far better as a cameo in the original. And Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr are totally wasted this time, disguised as cops instead of priests, and they don't even get into any trouble. Burt and Dom are dressed as soldiers; Burt is a general and Dom is a private. They pick up Jim Nabors along the way, as "Private Lyle" (guess what they're spoofing here?) and his cameo is as useless as an air conditioner in an igloo. It doesn't feel as if there is any "need" to win the race for any of the characters. You forget there is even a race at all. Man, I tell you, this is one of the worst sequels - if not the worst sequel ever, ever, ever made. Avoid it at all costs. Even as a kid I knew it was chum.

The guy who wrote the review, "Danza Vs Orangutan" got it completely right, except I think the question isn't whether or not the Orangutan is a better actor than Danza, it's whether the Orangutan in the more highly evolved. Again, Danza Loses.This is a crummy, stinking horrible film that is great after the second six pack on a Friday night. I rated it "5" because it's technically a "0," but it is as big a laugh as a real "10" film made by sapient beings. If you claim to be a bad movie buff but you haven't stepped in this pile of excrement yet, you haven't been trying.My suggestion: see it. Sure, the wince factor is high here, but the movie will certainly make you feel a LOT better about yourself...you know you're smarter and cooler than anyone associated with this gobbler.