This review pains me to write, as the first Bandit movie (1977) will always be my favorite film of all time. Why? It had a cool car (Burt Reynolds black Trans-Am), a good cast, a hilarious Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Justice, lots of chases, and great interaction between Sally Fields and Burt Reynolds. The main thing though was that the original "Smokey and the Bandit" never took itself too seriously as a road-comedy film. It knew that it was basically a dumb, fun car chase film. Then, the sequel came out in 1980 and basically killed whatever joy and fun the original film had created. First, there's the plot. The Enoses offer Burt Reynolds lots of cash to deliver an elephant to the Republican convention in Texas.

Mistake number one -- we already know that the elephant will be used as a basis for comic relief and cuteness. This cargo should have been something non-living such as more beer, or illegal cigars, cigarettes, ANYTHING ELSE besides an elephant.

Second, Burt Reynolds doesn't even bother playing the same character that he did in the first film. In this one, he's a washed up out of work has-been and milks the "feel sorry for himself" sub-plot to death. This is what killed this film for me. We needed the laid-back cool guy that Burt was in the original, not the loser in this film.

Third, the grand finale smash-up at the end of the film was overkill. Any idiot could see clear as day that the "police cars" being wrecked were obviously 15 year old junkers with "county sheriff" stickers slapped on their doors (some even had nothing...no roof lights OR door labels) At the end of the film, after all the lame road side arguing about the stupid elephant (Did I mention that it's also pregnant?) they decide not to finish the delivery after all. Gee, all that wasted gas in chase scenes for nothing. Actually, there's barely ANY chase scenes compared to the original film. Most of the film is spent between Bandit and Sally Field's Frog fighting about the expecting elephant or Bandit's self esteem problems. There are also a few unnecessary cameos by Terry Bradshaw and Mean Joe Green (who just date the film even more). The only good things out of this film are Jerry Reed's likable character Snowman, and of course, the one and only Jackie Gleason as forever persistent Sheriff Buford T. Justice. Other than those two things, and a hot looking black 1980 Turbo Trans-Am (that spends most of the film either driving 55 mph or parked) this has to be one of the most disappointing sequels ever made.

Response From RinkWorks:

I thought it was a '79 Trans-Am.