The Cannonball Run: Special Collector's Edition (1981)

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General		Extras
Category	Action Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Theatrical Trailer-2 Trailer-Once Upon A Time In China 3, Zu Warriors
Rating
Year Of Production	1981
Running Time	91:22
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Hal Needham
Studio Distributor	Fortune Star Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Burt Reynolds Roger Moore Farrah Fawcett Dom DeLuise Dean Martin Sammy Davis Jr. Jack Elam Adrienne Barbeau Terry Bradshaw Jackie Chan Bert Convy Jamie Farr Peter Fonda
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	Al Capps

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, Bloopers

    The Cannonball Run might've been a fun movie to watch in the early 80s but two and a half decades on it is certainly showing its age.

    Burt Reynolds heads an ensemble cast that is pretty impressive when you think about it, with the movie also featuring Roger Moore, Farrah Fawcett, Dom DeLuise, Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin, Jack Elam, Jackie Chan and Jamie Farr amongst others.

    The Cannonball is a road race from the east coast of the USA to the west coast. Contestants operate outside of the law, flaunting speed limits along the way so the racers have to come up with original ways to avoid the cops.

    Reynolds and his crew of DeLuise, Fawcett and Elam use an ambulance to evade detection, Chan uses a computerised stealth car (on an interesting note he is supposed to be on a Japanese race team, was introduced on a Japanese talk show with a Japanese speaking host but uses his native Chinese throughout the film), Martin and Davis dress up as priests in a Ferrari and Roger Moore pretends to be a secret agent using 007's trademark Aston Martin.

    The actors look like they are all having a lot of fun, hanging out with friends and getting to drive cool cars along the way. The film never takes itself seriously, running gags are used over and over and there is no character development. It's all about the cars, the jokes and the race.

Video

    The film is presented in 1.78:1 (close to the OAR of  1.85:1) and the disc is 16x9 enhanced.

    Considering that the PR for this release states that the film has been digitally restored I was disappointed with the video for the film. I guess it comes down to expectations. If I hadn't heard it was restored maybe I would've been pleased with the transfer.

    The opening credits car chase scene has some of the worst grain I have ever seen. Thankfully it improves soon into the feature, but grain is still an issue throughout the film.

    That said, though, there were no film artefacts which was a pleasant surprise.

    Sharpness suffers a lot. Close ups look OK but any wide shots and the picture starts to look a little fuzzy.

    Shadow detail was pretty murky (the darker the grainier). Colours were pretty ordinary - a lot of the film has a kind of washed-out look to it. There was no colour bleeding.

    Considering the film is 25 years old it's holding up pretty well, but don't expect digitally restored to mean a great looking transfer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio is an English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) track.

    The dialogue came through clearly at all times.

    The music (which was generally pretty hideous) sounded good too.

    There were no sync issues.

    This is an extremely front-heavy track with little use of the surrounds or sub-woofer. It's not what I would call a real 5.1 track, as there is little to no range in the audio and for the most part it sounded like a 2.0 track to me. It's the most basic of mono to 5.1 remixes that I have heard.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio & Animation

Theatrical Trailer-2

UK Promotional trailer (2:05)

    This is a modern trailer for the DVD.

Original Theatrical trailer (3:15)

Trailers-Once Upon A Time In China 3, Zu Warriors

    A retrospective would've been a lot of fun.

    R1 gets a commentary by the director and producer as well as cast and crew bios. Unless you are keen on the commentary buy on price. From what I have read the R1 version is a bit disappointing too.

    Overall, the film is a bit of mindless fun, but it's not aging well though.

    The video is not bad for such an old film, but don't get your hopes up for anything great.

    The audio is technically fine, but pretty bland.

    The lack of a commentary and other features is disappointing.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall