Smokey and the Bandit II
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Movie Reviews of Smokey and the Bandit II
Movie Review: Bandit Rides Again
Summary: 4 Stars
Can't touch the 1st, Sally still at her finest, Burt did a good job too.Movie Review: Ego Catches the Bandit
Summary: 3 Stars
Burt Reynolds always got along well with his stunt teams. Their fearless attitude and hard partying lifestyle (always after hours, NEVER during a shoot!) appealed to the inner nature of a box office superstar who found himself so trapped by his own fame that he couldn't enjoy the fruits of his success in the way he wanted to. He gave stunt buddy Hal Needham a directing stint for the first Bandit film and even made Hooper as an homage to a lifestyle Reynolds' celebrity status kept just out of reach.
We all know the story. Lightning struck and S&TB became an unexpected runaway smash. A sequel was inevitable. So what what wrong and what went right? Part of the problem was Reynolds' own ego. A funny thing happens to some people when they achieve massive success. They begin to believe their own press releases and think that people love THEM and not the things they've produced. It also happened to Stephen King who spent years writing terrible books. He came to believe that his name on the cover would be enough to move copies and he needn't worry about the quality on the pages inside. As his sales began to slide he created an alter ego (Richard Bachman) and re-taught himself the craft that got him stardom in the first place. The best example of this in Burt Reynolds' career comes in the middle of S&TBII when his character meets a man that doesn't buy into the whole "Bandit myth." Grabbing the man by the scruff of his shirt, Reynolds turns to Sally Field and says, "Who the heck does he think he IS?" Her reply, "I think you need to ask yourself that," sums up the entire problem with the film.
In the first Bandit movie, Needham quickly gave up on getting the beloved Jackie Gleason to stick to scripted dialogue. Given the chance to perform "blue" adult humor after years of being trapped by the constraints of televisions censorship limitations, Gleason went wild. He chewed the scenery, made up his own lines, and basically carried the humor of the entire film on his back. The crowds came for the hot car chases but they came back for repeated viewings to enjoy a comic master at the very top of his game. Needham wisely sets Gleason free in the second film and once again Gleason displays the reason why his career spanned so many decades. He is, was, and always shall be, one of the absolute masters at his craft.
Unfortunately, Reynolds, Reed, and Deluise spend a lot of time ad-libbing themselves and only Dom Deluise really has the comic chops to make it work. Reynolds shows no nuance whatsoever comedically and spends the bulk of the film mugging it up in the mistaken belief that his looks and the popularity of the character he is playing will automatically make him charming and funny. No such luck.
I caught Jerry Reed live some years back. He was reduced to playing at a high school gymnasium in a rural North Carolina town. He spent more time name-dropping and talking about his "star status" than singing and by the midpoint of the show, half of the crowd had already headed for the exits. Unlike Mr. King, Jerry never learned his lesson.
The end result is a movie that has twice the mugging and ham acting as the first with roughly half of the car chases and very little of the charm. At a time when people had come to realize that alcoholism destroys the lives of entire families, Reynolds portrays it as a good-natured and funny thing that can be cured with some situps and a few days on the wagon. Simply put, Reynolds had lost touch with the things that made him a star in the first place and the result was a film that might have worked ten years earlier, but was sadly out of place in 1980.
The film is still worth the ride for several reasons, not the least of which is the chance to watch Jackie Gleason unchained and running wild for the pure joy of it. Also, the crew discovered an abandoned roller coaster that was slated for demolition and Needham and Reynolds were able to convince the owner to allow them to destroy the ancient ride on camera. It makes for one of the most amusing and memorable moments of the film trilogy. Dom Deluise, given little to work with but a massive living and breathing prop, has some moments of true brilliance, not the least of which is his lament that he can't properly examine the elephant in the film without a set of OB-GYN stirrups.
S&TBII almost works despite the mailed-in performances of Reynolds and Reed. Although it really isn't up to the energy of the original on any levels, it was still fun to revisit the characters and there are worse ways to kill an evening than popping the movie into the DVD player and kicking back for a laugh or two. It's worth a rental and even worth purchasing if you can find it in the bargain bin for five bucks or so as I did. My wife and I bought it with the idea of having friends over for a "Bandit Double Feature" and the laughs and nostalgia the two films provided reminded us that movies don't have to be pretentious and full of social messages. Sometimes they're just made for the fun of it and are there just to be enjoyed.
I won't even comment on the third film. I paid for a ticket to see it in theaters when it was released so the studio has already gotten more money out of me than that film ever deserved. But the second film of the series still has enough juice (barely) to be worth viewing - especially as a companion piece to the original.
Movie Review: From Beer To Elephants
Summary: 3 Stars
Any fan expecting the same excitement from the first S&TB movie may be disappointed with this installment. Part II is a much slower paced movie without the 'outlaw bootlegger' twist. The estranged love-affair between Bo & Carrie drags the movie down to a crawl that not even the turbo-charged TA can help speed up.As you may remember, the first movie left off with Bandit betting on a clam chowder run from Boston to Atlanta. They should have continued on with that premise.
The movie reeks of 'Cannonball Run' antics with Dom Deluse sidekicking for Reynolds through the second half the movie. The backwoods feel is gone this time, along with the cleaverness.
Absent from the DVD are extras like deleted scenes (there must be some out there, they found enough extra footage from the first S&TB for TBS to broadcast), which is one of the main reasons people buy/rent DVDs.
However, if you like Gleason in the first one, there's plenty more of 'Beautiful Buford' in part II...and even more in part III where he becomes the main player (not literally, but S&TB 3 was almost released as 'Smokey IS the bandit' with Gleason playing the bandit and Buford...but that's a whole other review.)
Smokey and the Bandit II? A rental, but don't expect this DVD at Blockbuster anytime soon...
Movie Review: A LITTLE LACKING IN PLOT AND ENDING OF MOVIE
Summary: 3 Stars
NOT NEARLY AS GOOD AS THE FIRST MOVIE~ 'SMOKY AND THE BANDIT'. NOT MUCH OF A PLOT AND THE END WAS INCOMPLETE. A DECENT MOVIE, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A FAN OF PONTIAC FIREBIRD TRANS AMS. THE FIRST MOVIE WAS WAY MORE ENTERTAINING.Movie Review: What a dud.
Summary: 2 Stars
Sally fields is older than the hills and looks every bit of it.One minute Burts in a swamp the next he's in the Utah desert.Guess what there is no desert between Dallas and Florida.This one was a real turd. I really liked the part where the football player flips a 4000 lbs car with one arm. Sheesh, better suited for kids but somewhat racy with the language.