is this a good spielberg movie?

If you like the way Spielberg shoots a picture, this is every bit as well-filmed; the compositions and editing are everything you would expect. You get the sense of great visual storytelling but there's not often much of a story to tell.

The film itself is often very funny but fundamentally preposterous (more so than Jaws). It's what you would get if Spielberg had directed Smokey and the Bandit. Or else -- someone commented on this board about William Atherton's reaction to the Road Runner cartoon -- it's Spielberg's version of Road Runner.

A very good chase flick, with likable characaters, a fast-paced plot and fine performances.
And above all, an enjoyable and competent Spielberg film. Just not a masterpiece as those you mentioned, though.

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Just OK...

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilites.

No, it's a GREAT Spielberg movie! One of his best. Much closer to Altman than his own later blockbuster direction, but with the classic Spielberg craftsmanship already fully formed.

The Road Runner cartoons remind me when in High School my buddies & I paid to see 20 R.R. cartoons at the drive-in, because we loved them. After two we got bored since they were all the same. The Sugarland Express isn't like that, it's NOT like a front seat movie if you're really drunk with your girlfriend, but in the back seat. It's what you see after growing out of R.R. cartoons - young, dumb & drunk. Like I said, it's not bad, just a dime-a-dozen, not as good as the free movies I watch all the time. Even for a 5 year old, it's at least a waste of cop cars & your time. Everyone is allowed an opinion, but an opinion requires a mind & movie like this will take your mind away little by little - better to count flowers on the wall.

Its pretty good.