Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Brakathor This really is one of the strangest sequel's I've ever seen. Typically the only reason to ever have a sequel, especially one that's been hashed up retroactively as opposed to say, Lord Of The Rings, where you have three separate preconceived parts, is to recapture the magic of the original film. If you can't do that, the sequel is almost COMPLETELY redundant, in most cases. This speaks a lot to the fact that this film was quite widely canned at the time of its release. What it does, is it tries to cram four separate storylines and four separate timelines into one film, all taking place separately and far apart from each other. As such, the multiple plotlines are not as tight; there's no codependency between them, and the film fails to recapture the basic feel and general premise of the original film, which was that of urgency and adventure: one single fast paced night of riding fast, drag racing, and picking up girls.That being said. This film is interesting because it's quite ambitious, and does have a lot of character in its own right. It SHOULDN'T have been a sequel; of that there's no question. The question at this point is, how well would this concept have worked as a stand-alone movie? Quite simply, they have too many concepts going on at once, which makes the film both overly contrived, and difficult to follow, with the triteness of each plotline making it hard to really empathize with the characters on screen. It really does play out rather strangely as an action movie that was never really intended as an action movie. It just feels like there's too much going on, with so many characters that aren't fully or properly explored. There's a question that anyone watching this film should be asking themselves. How wacky is YOUR life, and at what point should one's suspension of disbelief go away after being presented with one over-the-top scene after another? The gimmick of each of the 4 storylines taking place on a separate concurrent New Year's Eve, in the end really does test that limit. If you're an ordinary person, your life doesn't suddenly explode and come to a head every New Years, as it does for virtually EVERY character on screen.They were simply trying to fit too many things into one package, and in the process, completely forgot about the appeal of the original film. If you enjoyed the original, you would have wanted to see another film about drag racing and picking up chicks. If that describes you, then you were cheated with this sequel. What this film DOES do well though, is it shows us a caricatural parody of four different facets of American culture surrounding the Vietnam era. Could this have functioned as a stand alone concept? Maybe, if they dropped the New Year's gimmick. It's a fun caper in its own right perhaps, but understandably, caricature and parody are not the types of things any fan of the original "American Graffiti," would have wanted to see made into a sequel.

Justcalljoe Wow! There have been bad movies and there is this movie and it is just terrible! The attempts to be cute with different photography techniques fall flat. The story is extremely lame. The first movie was great and well done but this one really sucks. It should only be recommended to someone you wish to punish! The primary actors have always been favorites but they really fall flat with this extremely weak script. Ron Howard appears very uncomfortable with his role and is never convincing. But, with a script this bad one can only do so much. The Vietnam sequences are exceptionally strained as well as the remainder of the movie. Watch anything else and you'll likely do better. Best of luck!

funkyfry I really don't think producer George Lucas didn't really set out to make such a horrible sequel as "More American Graffiti" turned out to be. But in retrospect it was the first crack in his then-seemingly impenetrable armor. Coming straight off the huge success of "American Graffiti" and produced basically at the same time as "Star Wars", this film was the first that Lucas successfully took away from Coppola without having to bother directing it himself. The result is typical Lucas -- far more interesting in terms of its structure and the way it's edited than the actual material. The writer/director Bill Norton has been allowed to use a variety of different screen ratios and split screens to produce odd associations in the images. While it's interesting to see ironic juxtapositions of the 4 story lines, the style ultimately only epitomizes the fractured nature of the film itself.Lucas' brilliant original film was all about a group of friends on the archetypical "last big night" before school ends and Kurt (Ron Dreyfuss) and Steve (Ron Howard) are supposed to go off to college. One thing that made that film work, despite the fact that it's very episodic, is that you had the core characters together at the beginning and they come back together at the end. There's a disposition of time, like in Nick Ray's "Rebel Without a Cause" where a certain period of time becomes very elastic and takes on more meaning than such a specific time really would in actual life, but everything takes place in a static space. "More American Graffiti" is basically the opposite -- the space is very dynamic, with Toad (Charles Martin Smith) off in Vietnam, his former girlfriend Debbie (Candy Clark) partying with hippies in San Francisco, Steve and Laurie (Cindy Williams) involved in student protests in Berkeley, and John Miler (Paul Le Mat) drag racing on the semi-pro circuit. In a contrived meeting early in the film all the principles are brought together to watch John race, but after that the threads don't come back together and weave apart the way they do in the original. Instead they split off and we follow the characters through about 3 years' of time, just seeing various events on New Years Eve in what seems to be 1967, 68 and 69. It's easy for the audience to become confused, and I think it's fair to say that we do. While the original film seemed to condense important events and rites of passages into unreal theatrical time that produced an experience of nostalgia even for those who never experienced those events, this sequel drags and stretches the few plot points from the epilogue of the original and attempts to make them into a coherent film.The best parts of the movie to me are the ones with Candy Clark in SF and Charles Martin Smith in Nam. Some of the jokes do fall flat but the style of those sections is interesting and they form a neat contrast with each other. A good movie could maybe have been made if these parts were just a bit better, and if the other parts weren't such a drag. Speaking of drag racing, the whole plot with Milner talking to a foreign exchange student was really lame, unfunny, and throwing in Mackenzie Phillips for a cameo didn't help at all. It was just another contrived moment, like when they briefly explain why Curt isn't in the movie because he's already in Canada. Instead Laurie just has another brother who is basically identical to Curt but has a different name and is now played by a very boring actor. There's a black kind of satire to some of the Vietnam stuff, very similar to what I would imagine Lucas and John Milius' original idea for "Apocalypse Now" would have been like. And there's some of that manic fun in the San Francisco scenes that made the first movie fun. But still along with that fun stuff, you have the rest of the movie dragging it down, as if anyone wants to see Steve and Laurie argue in their horrible suburban abode as if they were auditioning for a Spielberg movie about divorce and child abandonment. I think even if those parts of the movie weren't so painful, it still wouldn't really be comparable to the first movie because there's no closure and no sense of coming back together or of anybody having learned anything. It just sort of ends at the point when they ran out of money or something, a cheap freeze frame imitation of "Two-Lane Blacktop" and so many better films.Like the original however, this film has a great soundtrack of period hits that is probably worth owning for its own sake and almost makes the movie itself palatable. The performances by Country Joe and the Fish are great, and Scott Glenn all duded up as a hippie in love with Candy Clark is a sight to see -- I wonder if even back then he had to use a wig? I couldn't possibly recommend this movie, and yet it has some small affection in my heart because I love the original so much. Every couple of decades I guess I have to give this movie a try just to make sure that it's really as worthless as I remember it being. It's a party killer but it's something that every fan of "American Graffiti" or George Lucas in general will want to see at least once or twice. It shows how a lot of effort can go into something and it can still turn out pretty half baked. It makes you reflect on how much of a miracle it is that Lucas actually made such a good movie as "American Graffiti" in the first place, as if all the elements were in place and all the appropriate gods had been placated. Unfortunately such was not the case for this film or for Bill Norton.

arthurkelly American Graffiti is one of the best movies ever made. I've seen it at least 30 times and am emotionally affected by it each time I see it. (I graduated from high school in 1962.) However, More American Graffiti is one of the worst movies ever made.It is hard to believe than anyone associated with the great original movie was involved with this terrible sequel. The part of the movie set in Vietnam was extremely inaccurate. (I served 18 months in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division.) The whole movie had nothing worthwhile in any part of it.If anyone ever wants to make a case against making sequels to great movies, More American Graffiti would be the prime example of what can go wrong.