Celebrate 10 years of Awfully Good Movies with Burt Reynolds and an all-star cast of wacky racers in CANNONBALL RUN II!
Nearly ten years after director George Miller returned to the post-apocalyptic wasteland and redefined the action genre with Mad Max: Fury Road, the Australian auteur returned to replace Charlize Theron with Anya Taylor Joy to tell the origin story of the warrior who helped Mad Max cross that fury road in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. And regardless of how underwhelming its box office may be, this high octane prequel will surely stand the test of time alongside the rest of the Mad Max saga, certainly more so than another follow-up from Warner Bros. to a car racing franchise way back in 1984, when the late great Burt Reynolds bid farewell to the formula comedy genre that made him a superstar alongside an all-star cast (Jackie Chan! Frank Sinatra! TONY DANZA!) with Cannonball Run II.
The original Cannonball Run was just one of many hit movies between Burt and his stuntman buddy turned director Hal Needham after the blockbuster phenomenon of Smokey and the Bandit and its 1980 sequel, only for their next flick in 1983 Stroker Ace to sputter out quickly at the box office, a movie which Burt took instead of the Oscar-winning astronaut role for Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment. So it was back to the Cannonball Run for Burt and Hal alongside his frequent on-screen partner Dom DeLuise and Rat Pack singers Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. in another high-speed, big-money street race across the United States–sort of like the Fast & Furious movies, except somehow less ridiculous!
However, while the first Cannonball Run was one of the highest-grossing movies of 1981 despite bad reviews, Cannonball Run II would be another box office disappointment for Burt making back less than half of the first movie’s gross, with even worse reviews than the original. And though Burt ended his creative partnership with his lifelong friend, Reynolds’ career would never again reach the same heights of big name stardom he had in his 70s and 80s heyday.
So to celebrate my 10th anniversary of doing reviews for the JoBlo Originals channel, let us celebrate the 40th anniversary of a forgotten classic of Awfully Good-ness that finally brought down cinema’s beloved Bandit. I do apologize to those JoBlo subscribers out there hoping that I would do my 10th anniversary video on Smokey and the Bandit Part III, after the millions of requests I’ve gotten for it from my dozens of viewers. I’m sorry, but I just can’t disrespect the memories of Jackie Gleason and Burt Reynolds like that… that is, until I finally end up reviewing it for my 15th anniversary video in 2029, when I’ll hopefully have replaced my brain with an AI program by then!