Our racers are back for a second cannonball run - the illegal race that takes place all over the country... Almost every star of the first film is here, along with new ones. Will J.J. McClure finally be the winner this time? Written by

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(chvylvr80@aol.com) from Northridge, California
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Like I said, The Cannonball Run and it's wonderful sequel have been entertaining me since I was a little viewer and I love these two films. Once again Burt Reynolds and Dom De Luise joke and fool around through the entire movie. I think that the major reason that people give this movie bad reviews is that they take it too seriously. It is obvious that no one in the movie was taking it seriously. Like in the first one, it is as if everybody just decided to get together and make a movie for fun. The Cannonball Run films weren't made to win awards or further careers or make a statement. The Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II were made to show that even big stars can goof off sometimes. It makes me wonder if all the movies the Rat Pack made were made for the same reasons. Anyways, I love this movie and think that it's great fun. The out takes at the end are hilarious and more, nay, all movies should have out takes. Bottom Line: Buy it, watch it until every gag is committed to memory, and live better for it. You're welcome.

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Mmyers2003 from England, UK
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This film was good to watch and was still funny. Ok its not the best film in the world but i still found it funny and many still do. The chimp was cool and so were the rest of the cast. It was also a bonus to see Richard Kiel in the film (hes the big 7'2" tall man who pushed 4 men along the floor in the fight scene) Watch it everyone and just Relax. Overall I'd give it 7 out of 10

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bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
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Both Cannonball Run movies are films to totally relax and let your funny bone rule you. No plots that make any kind of coherent sense, just a whole lot of people getting a great chance to overact with gusto and abandon. And since Cannonball Run II just about tripled the number of name players who did walk ons, it could be considered triple the fun.

Folks like Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise who are the nominal stars, Jackie Chan, Jack Elam, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., and Jamie Farr make return appearances and a whole lot more get in on the fun.

Farr who is carrying the prize money as the fabulously wealthy hedonistic idiot son of an Arab sheik played here by Ricardo Montalban gets to be the target of some gangster heist when the wise guys find out what he's carrying. At that point the contentious rivalries cease among the Cannonballers as they band together against a common foe and to retrieve their prize money.

Along for the ride this time with Reynolds and DeLuise are a pair of ersatz nuns played by Shirley MacLaine and Marilu Henner. Martin and Davis now pretend to be cops instead of priests from the last film. They're the chief rivals of Reynolds and DeLuise. Telly Savalas does a great takeoff of his Kojak tough guy image on the other side of the law, Tim Conway and Don Knotts reunite as a pair of brain dead deputies. And Reynolds and DeLuise who pretend to be a general and his aide draft none other than Gomer Pyle on their 'top secret mission'.

Frank Sinatra even makes an appearance and it turns out that Cannonball Run II was the farewell big screen role for both he and Dino. As Dino says, he's royalty in America, surely in show business that's what he was.

Cannonball Run II which was starting to approach It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World in terms of casting funny people in it and Don Knotts and Sid Caesar are in both is just a film to turn off the gray cells and put the funny bone in hyper drive.

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Smile_U_SOB from Fang, Utah
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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.

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Petri Pelkonen (petri_pelkonen@hotmail.com) from Finland
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Cannonball Run II is the sequel for The Cannonball Run.A bunch of crazy people go racing all around the country-illegally, of course.Hal Needham's movie from 1984 has got the best and the biggest stars there could be.Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise make us laugh.Mr.Cool and Mr. Bojangles Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. make a terrific couple.Then there's the third member of the rat pack, Frank Sinatra himself.Marilu Henner and Shirley MacLaine as the naughty sisters are wonderful.Jackie Chan is there with Jaws of the James Bond films, big man Richard Kiel.Don Knotts is hilarious kissing the orangutan.The great comedian Sid Caesar tries to catch the big fish.Jack Elam is there with his shots.The hairless Telly "Kojak" Savalas is very convincing as the bad guy.Abe Vigoda is fantastic as the gangster in the Godfather way.Then there are greats such as Jamie Farr, Tim Conway, Tony Danza, Ricardo Montalban, Charles Nelson Reilly, Henry Silva, and Jack's son Chris Lemmon.This movie offers many fun moments.I sure had fun watching it.

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Warren Hawkes from Melbourne, Australia
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Once again Hal Needham brings together a half respectable cast like in the first Cannonball movie, but again forgot to bring a script. The mad-cap lunacy is still here, as are the cheap gags and stunts, but now it seems strange that all of this actually worked in the first movie, because it sure doesn't here. I found Burt and Dom laughing at their own jokes more than I did. It's no wonder Reynolds' career took a dive around this time if he was starring in films as dire as this.

The usual suspects are here while a few have (sensibly) dropped out of the race. Catherine Bach and Susan Anton are attractive enough, but don't quite cut it like Adrienne Barbeau and Co. did, and all they had to do was smile and flash their t**s once in a while. Richard Kiel is an unusual partner for Jackie Chan, but the little and large pairing works well. Chan also helped by bringing along his own stuntmen for the fight scenes, and it shows. Shirley MacLaine seems oddly at home with her trashy lines, while Telly Savalas fittingly over does things but is ultimately wasted in the movie, the same could be said for most of the cast. Frank Sinatra's inter-cut scenes are sickeningly shoddy and make the film appear as amateurish as it undeniably is.

If you did like the first Cannonball Run, (and there are a few!) you'll undoubtedly be disappointed with this outing, while those who didn't enjoy the first movie will no doubt detest the sequel.

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Aaron1375
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It was not all bad, but to completely honest I thought "Speed Zone" was a better sequel to the "Cannonball Run" than this movie was as this movie was almost the exact same movie only with inferior parts to it. Throw in a unfunny kidnapping plot for the only real difference in the movie and you have your sequel that came out three years after the original. That is another sad thing about this sequel, it came out long after the first one and they still went in exactly the same way. Burt Reynolds, Dom Delouise, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin are back along with a few others from the original. In though are a lot more B ranking actors. Roger Moore out, Richard Kiel in (the guy who played the villain Jaws in "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker"). Adrien Barbeau out and two chicks I do not know in. Farrah Fawcett out and two others I do not care for in. Jim Nabors and Tony Danza in, which is definitely not a good thing. Ambulance that was a great idea out and for some reason a military car and uniforms in. That one made no sense they would have been better off just using the ambulance again. The plot is the same, race across the country, the only difference being the guys trying to catch the sheik character to hold him for ransom and this does not stay original as it basically sets up another brawl like that found at the last part of the first movie. After this fight though the race just about is over with no fanfare. Just a pointless sequel, that has a few humorous moments, the best being the scene with Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

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bob the moo from United Kingdom
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Having shamed his family by failing to run the original Cannonball Run, The Sheik is sent back to America by his father to restage the race with $1,000,000 of the King's money. Spreading the word brings out most of the previous competitors as well as some new racers as well as some new trouble –Don Canneloni's son (Don Don) is failing in his new business venture and the Don has sent some men to sort out his debtors, namely one Morris Fenderbaum. When the Don's men catch up with Fenderbaun they learn of the Cannonball Run and decide that they will make some money by kidnapping the Sheik during the race.

A quiet night in with a few glasses of wine meant that somehow Cannonball 2 became a viable proposition but sadly, regardless of the influence of libation, this was a pretty poor film that didn't have much in the way of entertainment value. If you are the sort of person that thinks Smokey & The Bandit 3 is the height of cinematic art then you'll probably love CR2 but for the majority of us, this is just a collection of noisy scenes, hung together with the most basic of plots and a load of stars having fun; or at least I hope they were having fun because I certainly didn't. The basic plot is used to produce a few fights, some fast cars, a little bit of cleavage and a whole load of not much else.

The comedy is of the most basic sort and the cast do seem to be having fun with all their mates but this does not make their performances any good. Reynolds just sleeps through it in the way he always does, while anyone hoping that Dom DeLuise will be good for laughs deserve everything they get in life. Martin and Davis Jr seem happy for the paycheck but really you get the feeling that they are crying inside. Likewise Savalas and MacLaine are much better than this, while Rocco, Silva etc all deserve a damn good kicking for this mockery of their most famous roles. Elam, Danza, Farr, Chan and Kiel all fill the screen but at least Montalban and McClure are good value (although that may be less to do with their ability and more to do with Star Trek 2 and the Simpsons spoof respectively).

Overall a very, very basic comedy that does very little worth seeking out. The stars all appear to be enjoying themselves and it is really just as well that somebody is because the majority of viewers won't be. In its defence though, if you're watching this film then what did you expect – although that doesn't really excuse any of this nonsense.

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celcius from Canada
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I'm not sure what people were expecting to see when taking in this movie. I totally expected a fun peice of fluff with some action and car chases mixed in. That's what I got. Sure, you'll laugh at yourself for laughing at some of the jokes, but try not to be ashamed of it! I thought Shirley MacLaine, and Marilu Henner were most charming, and the cast in general has great comedic chemistry. If you have a funny bone, you will have a good time with this. 7/10

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MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta
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As I said in my review of the original 1981 film, this is much of the same – only slightly worse. What we get here is another impressive-looking but grossly underachieving cast list, which now also incorporates Shirley MacLaine (who, taking a cue from Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.'s ruse in the first film, dresses up with her younger companion as a nun but soon ditches the habit and gets it on with star Burt Reynolds: having retained her figure at 50, she's not afraid to display it and is made to don ultra-short skirts throughout the film's second half!), Telly Savalas (embarrassing as a flustered gangster), Frank Sinatra (in a cameo as himself that amounted to his farewell to the silver screen: the competitors turn to him when organizer Jamie Farr is kidnapped along with the prize money…after which Ol' Blue Eyes decides to try his luck at the title as well!), Ricardo Montalban (as Farr's dad), Doug McClure (as Farr's long-suffering manservant!), Richard Kiel ("Jaws" from a couple of James Bond titles, appearing incongruously as Jackie Chan's co-driver – although one does wonder whether they turned to him after Roger Moore declined an encore) and the dubious novelty of having a bad-mannered orang-utan driver (which not only lock lips with Montalban[!] at one point but actually wins the race).

Of course, Dom DeLuise, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Jack Elam (now detailed with Farr rather than Reynolds and DeLuise) also return to the fold – to say nothing of a new couple of sexy women drivers (including "The Dukes Of Hazzard"'s Catherine Bach). Incidentally, DeLuise has a second (or third, if you count Captain Chaos) role as a Mafia don – obviously aping Marlon Brando from THE GODFATHER (1972) – but which supplied the film's single funniest gag (i.e. the dead cat) and which I still vividly recalled from all those years ago. On the other hand, the low point would definitely have to be seeing Reynolds, DeLuise and Davis dressed up as dancing harem girls (even if Dino's reaction to that eyesore is admittedly amusing).

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Certifications:
Australia:PG / Canada:A (Nova Scotia) / Finland:K-12 / Norway:11 / Norway:16 / Portugal:M/6 / South Korea:12 / Spain:T / Sweden:15 / UK:PG / USA:PG