TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

leplatypus This sequel breaks down right from the start because it's clear that all our friends from the 1st movie live now their own life separately, so the movie is actually a collage of 4 separated short movies stuck together : As all vignettes movie, the quality of the segments is uneven : 1) the Nam experience of the Toad : except some nice shots of copters flying, this was highly boring ; 2) the SF hippies : except the really quick cameo of Harrison and a young Scott Glen, nothing really interesting here ; 3) the dragster contest : much better but in a very limited plot : the talent of the cast, Le Mat and Nordic Anna Bkorn, makes the difference 4) the family life : it's the more finished part that reunites as well good acting and an engaging story : i don't know a lot of movies that deals with student protest in the 60s and we have a good summary here : this segments has also the best song moment of the movie with the famous Babylove (unlike the 3 others in which the score is far from Lucas hits..)… The director has indeed an experimental attitude with his camera but at the end, the movie is a nearly expandable sequel. If i don't give it the average, it's due to the silly captions at the end… What's the point to tell more about their lives with lines while you have got it with pictures ???

LDQ409 I was a big fan of American Graffiti, and was eagerly looking forward to the sequel. I know that some sequels are great, and others should never have been made. More American Graffiti is in that category. Since we know what happened to many of the original characters, a good sequel could have been made if done the right way. The points of the Viet Nam war, drag racing, women's lib, the protests against the war and the hippie movement could all have been shown, without the confusion that this movie portrays them. Although I am by no means a writer and have never written a screenplay, after seeing this horrible sequel, I came up with one that seemed more plausible because I was utterly disappointed at this one.Instead of showing 4 different New Year's Eves, why not have it done as a flashback. Steve & Laurie could be reminiscing at a New Year's Eve Party in the 80's with her brother. They could talk about 1968, and show the riots and how they have worked through their marital problems. Then Debbie and Carol(Rainbow)could stop by and reminisce about their hippie years and what they are doing then. Steve can go out for more beer and run into Terry, who is back in CA working in a 7-11. He brings him to the party and he tells how he escaped Viet Nam and why everyone thinks he was dead. Then they hear a report on the news about a drag race accident, and they all remember Milner's drag racing and what led up to his horrific crash. It can end with them toasting to Milner's memory and the hope that they can survive in the 80's and beyond.After reading other reviews, I understand why from a technological viewpoint the use of the camera shots were innovative for the time. That being said, it does not make up for the mishmash this movie is. Future filmmakers should take heed about how NOT to write a sequel.

mtmv I saw American GRAFFITI when it first came out and was blown away. I didn't even know there was a sequel until it came on late-night TV a few years ago. I watched it with some reluctance, expecting it to be a letdown. I was pleasantly surprised - by not trying to duplicate the original and instead concentrating on developing the characters in a logical way this movie is a worthy successor to the first. I saw it again yesterday and I like it even more - Candy Clark is perfect, the scenes with Terry The Toad are as effecting as he was in the original, and Steve and Laurie are exactly who you knew they'd turn out to be. If you give this movie a chance to stand on it's own, and not require it to re-create the experience the feeling of seeing the first, you'll be satisfied.

Tommy Nelson I suggest if you have already seen the original American Graffiti, do not see this movie. If you haven't seen the original, I still don't recommend this, but it will be a lot less painful to watch. The characters from the first film are great, and by the end you fell a connection to them. This movie sets out to show how bad their lives have become. It's a chore to watch!Set on New year's eve in 1964, '65, '66 and '67, we have four stories about the characters from the first film. In '64, we have John Milner (Paul Le Mat) who is now a professional drag racer. He meets a foreign girl Eva, and though his plot really goes nowhere, it's the best of the four. In 1965, we have Toad (Charles Martin Smith) who is stuck in Vietnam, and more than anything, he wants out. He tries to find ways to hurt himself or do stupid things to get out. In '66, we have Debbie (Candy Clark), the girl who Toad picked up in the first movie. Now she is a pot smoking hippie, and really I'm not sure what her plot was about. It was her going to a concert...not much of anything happened. Finally, in 1967, Steve Bolander (Ron Howard) and Laurie Bolander (Cindy Williams) are having marriage problems that end in a anti-war rally and police action.None of these stories are very good. The script in some parts features very, very bad dialogue. These poor characters who I enjoyed so much in the first film, ended up where they are here...why? Why was this sequel made? I guess if a sequel was made, it had to feature the Vietnam war, and hippies and police action, but the real thing is that this movie shouldn't have been made.The direction was stylish, but it just amounts in a huge headache. Each story has a different style. Milner's is just a regular (depending on how you watch it) wide screen, and is filmed how the rest of the movie should be. Toad's plot was shot in 16mm, and what it amounts to is a poor looking picture, which is the size of a small box in the middle of the screen. Debbie's plot is shot in multi-screen. At one point there might have been one screen, but for the good majority, it's anywhere from two to twenty screens up at once. Don't bother trying to follow the screens, since there's nothing going on anyways. Steve and Laurie's plot has the weirdest filming style. It's style really doesn't mean anything, and is dumb and pointless. Instead of just a full widescreen, it's a condensed widescreen that looks like a full screen version of widescreen. Though I don't like the others, at least I understand what they were going for, this one just doesn't make sense.The music is this movie's saving grace, not that it could save this! Bob Dylan, Simon and Grafunkel, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and dozens of others have nice songs featured here. They don't save the feature, they just make it a little better than it is. It's still bad! Overall, this is a pointless sequel. Any fan of the original should avoid this lackluster sequel! My rating: * 1/2 out of ****. 110 mins. PG for language, drug use and violence