Cannonball Run III-ish
"Cannonball Fever" which is also known as "Speed Zone" starts with a man being chased by cops in his Lamborghini, to escape he skims the car across a pond where a grandpa has just been teaching his grandson to skim stones. It should be a fantastic scene which impresses you with the stunt driving but also makes you laugh but in truth it completely bombs leaving you unmoved. Unmoved is a good word to describe the "Cannonball Fever" as a whole because despite a cast featuring some well known faces never once excites like it hopes to.
Now before I get to the synopsis what I can piece together is that originally this was intended to be "Cannonball Run III" but with Burt Reynolds turning it down and with only Jamie Farr agreeing to reprise his role as the Sheik the producers decided to call it "Speed Zone" which later on became "Cannonball Fever". So with that in mind what we have is really a second sequel to the original movie and as such follows the familiar set up of various people racing cars across country trying to avoid cops and doing each other in although this time we have amateurs doing the racing. Now if that entertained you the first time around this movie might just at a stretch entertain you again but for anyone else it is simply incredibly weak.
The trouble is that cars going fast and cops chasing them is not funny nor are stunts as it is the characters who made the original movie just about entertaining. Unfortunately despite some now familiar faces the characters in "Cannonball Fever" are not entertaining and leave you bored by the poor comedy dialogue which I am not sure they even try to make work.
In the end the most entertainment you get from watching "Cannonball Fever" is spotting the stars as there is a lot of well known faces picking up cheques for a few scenes. There is Peter Boyle, John Candy, Matt Frewer, Eugene Levy and Tim Matheson who are all easily recognized but then there are also the likes of Brooke Shields, Alyssa Milano and even a cameo from athlete Carl Lewis. In truth these actors are much better than the movie and you question why they agreed to appear but thankfully their appearances at least provides a touch of amusement.
What this all boils down to is that you really need to have loved the original "Cannonball Run" movies to find "Cannonball Fever" close to being entertaining.
