This spoof of seventies diaster films has a promising cast and great premise, but the jokes are few and far between. For every bit of inspired lunacy (like the bowling alley and pool scenes within the bus) there are at least six bits that go nowhere or are just plain flat. Example: a very unfunny Larry Hagman cameo.
Save your time and money. This is one bus that travelling on flat tires.
Actually, I thought that this film has held up well.
It does take a little while to get started, but once the bus is on the road the laughs are pretty much non-stop until the end.
No one has commented, though, on the absurdity of having a disaster movie set on a bus! A plane, yes, a boat, certainly...but what trouble can a bus get into?
Very, very, funny movie...
And then years later they made Speed. Now that's funny...
shareI actually Think this film is getting BETTER as it gets older. Watching the astounding cast hamming it up and delivering the absurd dialogue is a real treat that is getting rare in this new, sarcastic century. When I was a teenager I would catch this movie from time to time and think that it was outdated and slowly-paced. But now I see the film in a whole new light. It has transcended the goofiness that inspired it and become high camp. You really appreciate this movie not for an award-winning script, but instead for its pure audacity and the visible fun a lot of people had making it.
shareI think this film has stood up remarkably well and still competes with films like Anchorman!
share"...this is one bus travelling on flat tires".
Uh, cute.
I still find this film funny. That's all that matters. I feel movies should be a product of their time. I enjoy older films. It's certainly funnier than ANYTHING and EVERYTHING at the multiplexes today, that's for sure!
Haven't seen this in probably 30 years. What most people either have forgotten or just don't know is that when this came out, jumbo jets ruled the skies...some 747s actually had a piano in the 1st class lounge on the upper deck! This may have influenced the producers of this movie. Put that in your turbofan and bypass it.
shareI hadnt seen this in at least 20 years since i was a kid, but it thought at the time it was great so i bought it off ebay and have just finished watching it and i was very dissapointed, very poor and extremely dated i must confess.
shareI think its held up very well.
My brother and I recorded it off a late movie in the 80s and with the recent passing of Natasha Richardson, I've suddenly started thinking of shows and movies I saw her aunt, Lynn Redgrave, in and this one sprang to mind and now I want to see it again, so now I am going to have to borrow it from him.
But even having watched it over the past decade or so, it held up more than I would have believe it could.
I am an incredible fan of the disaster movies, so I pretty much caught the entire bulk of the spoofs and jokes, which weren't as obvious as Airplane's.
without a doubt, Channing and Bologna had some of the best hammed up dialogue I have ever heard.
My favorite of hers is when she tells Shoulders he can't be the co-pilot because he doesnt fit the suit.
And the Hagman joke was funny. I always remember that wounded person who couldn't be moved bit.