User Reviews

There will always be movies that try to make a quick cash grab at something that was/is popular and Speed Zone is one of many. Without 99% of the original cast, this "Cannonball Run" fails to capture what made the first two movies special.

Actually, the actors they do have aren't bad at all, they all seemed to have fun with their parts and all were some pretty big name actors. The problem is the plot, it seems to go all over the place and it never really decides what direction it wants to go.

Essentially, you have a police chief who is obsessed with stopping the Cannonball at all costs and you have everyone else who is trying to keep in the race. That's about as much of the plot you're going to understand because the movie likes to throw in little sub-plots that literally go no where (I swear it feels like I'm writing driving puns at this point).

For example: You have a scene of the two female racers who happen upon a lone Chevy S-10 in the middle of nowhere, the driver of which is coaxed into racing them. This scene serves no purpose as it only last about a couple minutes and is never brought up again.

Another glaring "sub plot" is when Cronan suddenly veers into oncoming traffic and almost hits a semi head on. The semi turns and gives chase. On and off again, we're treated to a chase between Cronan and the truck with some eerie horror movie style music. The entire tone of the scenes does not mix well with what is supposed to be a fast-paced car movie and once again, like the previously mentioned scene, it abruptly ends and we never figure out what happened to the truck or why the driver chased Cronan in the first place.

You will find lots of scenes like this that don't actually have a beginning or an end and really only feels like they were filmed from other movies then cut together as filler, which at only 112 minutes, they could have had a lot more story.

The movie also loses focus on who the main characters are as it jumps around between everyone equally and other characters not so equally, like the scene with Richard Petty (who I don't believe was really him, even though it says it was, but unaccredited).

The entire movie is just a major failure of random mini plots that has almost no climax and an ending that is by far, sub-par. It literally ends with the Smothers Brothers (skiing?) into the water with circus music.

That being said, despite it's glaring errors and no real direction, it's still a fun movie to watch if you just want something to turn your brain off during and I did get a couple chuckles here and there from some of the silliness. I certainly wouldn't add it to my collection as part of the Cannonball Run movies, but if I find a copy of it for a good price, I may have to acquire it.

Much like the previous two movies this one opens with yet another red Lamborghini Countache, but this time its tearing down a small winding wooded country road, a change from the open desert. Naturally right behind this Italian supercar the cops are in hot pursuit. In the meantime Lee Van Cleef, in a very small cameo, plays an elderly grandfather teaching his grandson how to skip stones across a small lake. Van Cleef tells the young boy how to throw the stone at just the right angle so it can skip across the water.

All of a sudden the red Lambo comes roaring up to the waterline and flies across the obviously shallow lake, skipping just like a flat stone...kinda, it then takes off once it hits dry land. The young boy looks at his grandfather and asks him about the angle he should throw the stone, Van Cleef looks at the car in disbelief and...annoyance I guess. The whole setup is cheesy as hell and doesn't really work to be honest, its not funny at all and Van Cleef is wasted totally, shame. The intro is good, its always good to see an 80's Lambo tearing it up, but it doesn't hold a candle to the first two movie intros.

I think you can guess what the plot is here, its another race, from east (Washington D.C.) to west (Santa Monica) and the winners this time stand to receive 1 million Dollars. Unfortunately the D.C. chief of police (Peter Boyle) manages to arrest all of the drivers prior to game time so a whole bunch of new drivers must be found. One by one each sponsor clambers to find a new driver any way they can, no matter who they are.

In the starting grid this time we have Charlie (John Candy), who has been tricked and bullied into driving for his so called best friend from school Gus (Eugene Levy). Charlie is a parking valet and brilliant driver, hence Gus wanting him for the race. Along for the ride is Tiffany, Gus's love interest, for some reason, mainly because she is eye candy. They use a BMW.

Matt Frewer plays Englishman Alec who is in debt to loan sharks. They send a hit-man to whack him (Joe Flaherty), but Alec persuades Vic to ride in the race with him in order to pay back the money he owes. Vic may have other ideas though. They drive a Jag XJS.

The two sexy ladies for this movie aren't quite as sexy as the previous two but hey, you gotta have the sexy ladies in a sexy car, its obligatory. Here they manage to persuade a Ferrari owner to use his Spyder. The duo are MIT grads and electronics/gadgets experts, so they use their brains and electronic gizmos to assist them in gaining the upper hand. This is the easy bit of tame progression for the movie (and 80's), having the sexy females actually going against the norm and being intelligent and skillful characters instead of just skimpily dressed sluts.

Tim Matheson is a TV reporter who gets caught up in the race in his van, so he decides to race. The driver of the red Lambo from the intro sequence (John Schneider of 'The Dukes of Hazzard') gets arrested with all the other original drivers, its left in the hands of an Italian porter. An ice cool dude called Flash steps up outta nowhere and takes control to drive it, he's an ex-cop and wants the money for his own unknown reasons. Flash is a super cool, shades wearing driver, where as the Italian is a trembling nervous wreck.

Lastly Nelson and Randolph Sloane are two millionaires who spend their whole time trying to cheat their way to the finish, mainly by catching a plane to the finish line. They drive a Bentley Corniche. Jamie Farr makes a cameo as the Sheik from the first two movies but he doesn't race.

As you can imagine much of the run time is taken up with the predictable scenarios of the various characters getting into all sorts of close calls. There are some nice moments of car porn but nowhere near as much as the previous two movies, this time an emphasis has been put on making the few set pieces bigger. Hence the race from downtown Washington D.C. which is a highlight admittedly, the race into Santa Monica, and the use of a large aircraft. In between all that there are various small cameos of course and the usual tomfoolery and slapstick routines. One such sequence sees Candy pretty much redoing (homaging?) a famous scene from his classic movie 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles'. Another sees a learner driver being taught by a racist instructor who bullies the learner into overtaking any foreign car, whilst he verbally abuses the driver as they pass. Definitely another highlight as its actually very amusing to see this guys reaction to a Volvo and Alfa Romeo.

All things considering there aren't many, if any, car wrecks in this movie, it seems they were too scared to possibly damage anything, or maybe the budget wasn't high enough. The movie takes an age to get going and an age to actually finish and once the race is done it carries on with boring fluff. Its not a particularly funny film, or exciting film, alas we've kinda seen it all before now and this feels very much like beating a dead horse. Nonetheless it is fun at times, the cars are great as always (as long as you like cars) and the range of character actors on display is reasonable.

4/10

I'm the biggest fan of movies inspired by the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash - Cannonball, Cannonball Run, Cannonball Run 2 - yet I had never heard of this movie. Can you believe that? While this is known as Speed Zone in the U.S., it was called Cannonball Run III and Cannonball Fever overseas.

I only found out about this because it was directed by Jim Drake, who made Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol. It was written by Martin Short's brother Michael, who has worked with the SCTV cast on projects from the Ed Grimley cartoon to Schitt's Creek.

This movie was absolutely despised by Siskel and Ebert. While the former said, "It is an atrocious excuse for entertainment. If I have a pet peeve about movies is that they are so venal that don't even try to be good," Ebert went all in on his hatred for this movie, stating "Read my lips. Cars are not funny. Speeding cars are not funny. It is not funny when a car spins around and speeds in the other direction. It is not funny when a car flies through the air. It is not funny when a truck crashes into a car. It is not funny when cops chase speeding cars. It is not funny when cars crash through roadblocks. None of those things are funny. They have never been funny."

The teams for this race are:

BMW: Parking valet Charlie Cronan (John Candy), racing for his school rival Leo Ross (Eugene Levy), who sends his girlfriend Tiffany (Donna Dixon, the wife of Dan Aykroyd) along for the ride.

Jaguar XJS: Mob hitman Vic DeRubis (Joe Flaherty!) and compulsive gambler Alec Stewart (Matt Frewer, Max Headroom in the flesh), who have turned Viuc's contract on Alec's head into a chance to win money.

Ferrari Daytona Spyder: MIT students Lee Roberts and Margaret (Melody Anderson and Shari Belafonte), who see the race as a challenge that their love of technology can solve.

Lamborghini: Italian porter Valentino Rosatti (Brian George, who is really Israeli-English) and former cop Flash (Art Hindle, Black Christmas).

Bentley Corniche: Cheating rich guys Nelson and Randolph Van Sloan (The Smothers Brothers), who decide to fly to the finish line.

The News Van: TV reporters Heather Scott and Jack O'Neill (Mimi Kuzyk and Tim Matheson) who become part of the story they are covering.

They're all being chased by Police Chief Spiro T. Edsel (Peter Boyle) and Whitman (Don Lake, Police Academy), who has already arrested one entire race worth of contestants.

Man, this movie has some cameos. Brooke Shields (who was hit by the shrapnel of this movie and got a Golden Raspberry Award for her brief moment in the, well, sun), Alyssa Milano, Carl Lewis, Richard Petty, Michael Spinks, John Schneider (who is pretty much playing a Duke boy in the beginning), Lee Van Cleef in one of his last roles and Jamie Farr, who appears as Sheik Abdul ben Falafel, making him the only actor to be in all three Cannonball Run movies.

I first saw this on the British channel sky movies - it was the Sunday family film. I caught the end and was transfixed, for one reason. I had just bought a jaguar XJ-S in blue with a red stripe. The exact same type from Speed Zone. I remembered the name and tried to find it in Europe. I couldn't and after long and hard searching on the internet eventually found it on ebay. When i watched it i was disappointed. Yes, the car chase sequences are good - but for an hour and a half long film there are not enough. Half of the film is trying to build on John Candy's love relationship with his passenger - and while the first few of these scenes are quirky and amusing , they get boring very quickly. Alex and Vic in their XJS are the best characters to follow but they seldomly appear. The news reporters are also annoying with random wrong comments that the writers obviously put in to liven the film up. John Schneider from the dukes of hazard's name appears high up in the list of names in the credits from the beginning but he only has 4 lines and appears for about 30 seconds. I like this film, despite it's corny mess and the actors bad acting because the car chases are good. If you are a car person then this is a must but if you enjoyed all the other car chase films - leave this one out. you'll be glad you did.