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Gumball Rally, The 
Reviews DVD Reviews
Written by Dave Anderson   
Thursday, 29 September 2005


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Gumball Rally, The

Grade

Content Grade: B
Sound Grade: C+
Extras Grade: D
Picture Grade: B+

Specs

Warner Home Video 2.35:1 Widescreen English & French Mono English, French & Spanish Subtitles Closed-Captioned 107 min., color, 1976 Rated PG

Review

I'm probably giving "The Gumball Rally" a better content grade than it deserves. Part of the reason is likely my nostalgic fondness for the movie; when I first saw it at age 12 I thought it was the pinnacle of movie comedy. 30 years later, even though the gags are childish and stupid, seeing it again on DVD brought a smile to my face. Another reason is, of all the "illegal road race" flicks, "The Gumball Rally" was the first and best of the lot (that may be faint praise, since watching your toilet flush is more entertaining than the big-budget "Cannonball Run" movies that followed). Being that one of my goals is to own every movie I loved as a kid on DVD, I'm happy Warner finally put it out, even as a bare-bones release.
It's the most simple of stories, inspired by a real-life annual illegal cross-country race, in which a collection of eccentric and goofy individuals get together to race from New York to Los Angeles. Most of the characters are painted in broad, shallow strokes, introduced with just enough set-up before getting to the race itself, which comprises a majority of the running time. We get lots of well-choreographed stunt work, endless scenes of exotic cars chasing each other down highways, incredibly stupid slapstick humor & extraordinarily far-fetched plot turns, all punctuated by an oddball music score that tries to remind us we're having a good time. In many ways, "The Gumball Rally" is kind of like watching a live action cartoon. It isn't clever in the least, nor are there any great one-liners, but the movie is so good-natured that we like these bland characters anyway (especially a scene-stealing Raul Julia as Franco), and enjoy the situations they get themselves into. With a plethora of crashes in which nobody dies, silly scenes of the characters' "outrageous" antics, dumb cops, boob jokes & empty-headed action, "The Gumball Rally" manages to entertain in spite of itself.

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Picture and Sound

I actually expected the video transfer to be fairly lackluster, but the overall image, presented in 2.35:1 widescreen, is actually pretty good for a 30 year old movie that only I and maybe 6 others have been waiting for. The same can't be said for the audio transfer, which is rendered in flat & unspectacular mono.

Extras

The only extra feature included is a theatrical trailer.

Summary

I admit "The Gumball Rally" is a stupid and dated car chase picture, but it's also cheerful, exuberant and almost impossible to watch without a dumb smile on your face. It's also light years better than any other similar movie to come along in its wake. With surprisingly decent picture quality, those who fondly remember the movie should get a mild kick out of this DVD release. Similar Movies: "Cannonball"; "The Cannonball Run"; "Gumball 3000: 6 Days in May"; "Smokey and the Bandit"; "Death Race 2000"; "Speed Zone" Useless Trivia: Ironically, this was the first movie released by First Artists Productions, a company formed by Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand & others with the intention of producing unconventional art films.

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