Let explain the review title first. In 1963 MGM released a film titled "It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World" which starred many famous actors and actresses at the time and also involved a big race between others except not cross country, like in 'Cannonball'. Cannonball Run like 'Mad Mad World' features famous actors and actresses of the 70s and 80s built around a chase- type plot.

The film follows name actors and actresses like Bert Reynolds,Dom Delouise,Farrah Fawcett,and Roger Moore........ just to name a few in a somewhat wild car race to California. Along the way the racers try to dodge the police and pull tricks on each other. The film is filled good laughs and good parodies of some actor's persona's, such as Roger Moore being a James Bond-type character (as we all know Moore played Bond seven times from 1973-1985). The racers all vary from Japanese drivers in a high-tech Subaru,An actor, famous for playing in spy films in an Aston Martin DB5,guys impersonating priests,an Arabian prince etc. Cannonball Run is filled with fun action sequences and sets a very laid back rhythm surely good enough to please anyone.

Like I said, the film is very laid back and calm. For most parts it didn't really interest me, but it did keep me intrigued by some of the crazy situations the characters would get themselves into. That is where I think the movie failed. This film could've been an easy five stars (ten since its IMDb), but it kept going down a very mellow track in which a lot of the dialogue between characters is meaningless. I wouldn't really consider this a high-tailed chase film, until the very end. This film would've been better if they crammed it with crazy car stunts and chases between the other racers and the police. Besides the the plot, this film's list of stars is endless. This always kept my eye out for people that I've seen in previous films or T.V shows before. You'll run into stars like Jackie Chan, Adrienne Barbeau,Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Fonda etc. Its an interesting mixed bag of stars coming under one movie. Another interesting note is that the film company who distributed this, Golden Harvest, a famous Hong Kong film company. Was responsible for making martial art's legend Bruce Lee and soon Jackie Chan big stars. In fact for the film's Hong Kong release, Jackie Chan was topped billed and Bert Reynolds was second(Jackie Chan was already famous in Hong Kong for his martial art's film The Drunken Master,1978,). This was not Chan's first US film. The year before he was in Robert Clouse's The Big Brawl released by 20th Century Fox and distributed by Golden Harvest as well. And of course stars like Dean Martin,Roger Moore,Farrah Fawcett etc. don't need any explanations.