Speed Zone

A lot of people don't know, or even care for that matter, that there was a Cannonball Run 3. In 1989, looking to reboot the fast car franchise, before reboot's were really a thing, the fimmakers decided to drop the original players, with the exception of Jamie Farr, go figure, in favor for most of the SCTV cast and a ton of comedic heavyweights. The end result was known in other countries as Cannonball Run 3 or Cannonball Fever, but here in America, it was Speed Zone.

The drivers from the first two films have all been arrested, with the exception of Jamie Farr's Sheik character, who announces his retirement from the sport. This opens the door for a slew of new drivers. There's Charlie, John Candy, an amazing driver whose bullied into it by an old classmate Gus, Eugene Levy. Gus has his girlfriend Tiffany, Donna Dixon, accompany Charlie. Vic, Joe Flaherty, is a hitman assigned to kill driver Alec, Max Headroom's Matt Frewer. Alec talks Vic out of killing him and asks him to be his partner in the race so they can split the winnings. Lee, Flash Gordon's Melody Anderson, and Margaret, Shari Belefonte, step into the two, hot ladies roles, except this time around they don't use their sex appeal to get out of tickets. Millionaires Nelson and Randolph Van Sloan, Tom and Dick Smothers, are trying to cheat their way into the winner's circle by hopping a plane. And, their's a tv reporter, Tim Matheson, who's covering the race and gets so into it that he becomes a driver.In hot pursuit is police chief Spiro T. Edsel, Peter Boyle, wanting to put an end to the fun.

Not that there's a lot of fun to be had. That being said, this is probably my favorite of the Cannonball Run films. I like the cast of this one more than the previous two. The problem with these movies is that the cast seems to be having more fun than the audience watching. Probably because they are getting a big, fat paycheck to joke around and drive fast. Burt Reynolds was offered a kot of money to return, but turned it down because he wanted to be taking more seriously as an actor. A good call on his part since he went to shoot the underrated Breaking In.

Not a great movie at all, but sometimes you just get the urge to watch celebrities drive fast and crack wise.

It's not available on dvd or blu ray.