Review of Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) by Cade S — 16 Mar 2010

Starts out promising but quickly devolves into strange character trait changes and asinine sub plots. The original had a neat little historical twist with its exploitation of a then current law of transporting booze across the mississippi river.

This one has Bandit and crew transporting an elephant to some party to impress some idiot republican governer into giving the two moronic enos's the blessing for a run for governer. Or something. Who cares.

Burt Reynolds completely ruins every thing that was awesome about his in the first by portraying himself as a angry bitter drunk with a big fat ego. Really as the movie goes along he becomes very unlikeable and when he gets his 'redemption' at the end he doesn't deserve it.

Sally Field is really hot here but has little to do except stand there and look pretty. Jerry Reed is still very likeable as the ever dependent sidekick with his blood hound fred. Jackie Gleason has some hilarious zingers but becomes a caricature of his character in the original which was a caricature in the first place.

Its funny untill it veers into unseemly territory by making some rather nasty racial jokes. But I guess with the main character is boozing bloated asshole and the two likeable characters (Jerry Reed & Sally Field) reduced to putting up with inferior talents around them hogging the spotlight it was inevitable and typical.

And yes I know Jackie Gleason is actually just mocking the ignorant attitudes of southern rednecks at the time but its still unseemly. Dom Delouis is completely useless and annoying. Not a single thing he does here is funny or even watchable.

And there is no point to his character even existing really other than that DeLouis was good friend with Burt Reynolds at the time. Still there is some good solid music from Jerry Reed again.