Herbie Rides Again
Published December 27, 2011
Film info
- Title Herbie Rides Again
- Director Robert Stevenson
- Year 1974
- Run time 1hr 28m
- Genres Comedy, Fantasy, Family, Romance
- Tagline The lovable Bug's back doin' his thing!
First of the sequels starring Herbie the Volkswagen. Herbie tries to help an old woman who is trying to prevent a property developer from building a skyscraper on her land.
Background Info
We watched the first movie as a group, participating in the Sidepodfilmclub and enjoying the live comments. I would never really have thought of looking at any sequels (although I have unfortunately seen Fully Loaded as well), but the iPlayer appear to have something of a Herbie marathon going on with all four original films available to view. I probably won’t have time to see them all but I made a start.
Live Blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 0:39 - The best bit about old films is how inconsistent the shots are to each other - like they were shot in completely different times, different cameras, etc, etc. | |
| 1:34 - It’s a very destructive start to a film. I’m assuming these are not all in the same place, else there’ll be nothing left! | |
| 2:50 - He’s right, the Colosseum would make a mega shopping centre. | |
| 5:59 - “give out awards to a lot of strange ducks.” I like that. Strange ducks. | |
| 7:03 - Cigars are so weird. They always look too big for people’s mouths. | |
| 8:59 - Is that Herbie I spy? | |
| 10:38 - There’s more than one item with personality like Herbie? Wow! | |
| 14:55 - “You stubborn bucket of bolts.” | |
| 17:30 - Is this chicken jousting with cars a real thing because it’s kinda crazy! | |
| 20:08 - I don’t think I could cope with a restaurant where the waiters have to tie a bib on you. | |
| 21:14 - “I don’t understand why you hit him with a boiled lobster.” Amazing line. | |
| 23:21 - A montage of the previous film. Interesting way to fill a couple of minutes. | |
| 34:52 - Mr Hawk is not having a very good day. It’s never a smart move to annoy the traffic commissioner. | |
| 37:53 - Herbie has the edge going round and round a multi-storey car park entrance, being smaller than those chasing him. | |
| 39:57 - That might be the least believable thing I’ve ever seen. | |
| 45:51 - Herbie is a boat as well? Maybe James Bond could have used him instead of that famous car. | |
| 55:39 - They’re not exactly subtle - a big ol’ tram car with heaps of furniture running down the road. | |
| 57:29 - I think if you go out with someone who hit you with a lobster on your first date, then you can probably get through anything. | |
| 1:03:59 - Uh oh, falling down in the foam is a sure fire way of getting run over! | |
| 1:05:13 - “There must be some way to make this car behave.” Not Herbie, I’m afraid. | |
| 1:10:20 - Hehe, that’s genius. | |
| 1:13:30 - He’s even risking having another meal with her. No lobsters this time. | |
| 1:21:34 - Lots of Herbies! |
Conclusions
It wasn’t the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it did seem to strip away the essence of Herbie completely. Yes, it makes sense that he would look after a little old lady as best as possible, and he is certainly the kind of car to encourage a relationship and nudge it along if he can. But he’s a racing car and the only bit of actual racing we saw was a weird game of chicken, and then chasing a man onto the ledge of a tall building. Very odd. I quite liked the two main characters though (the man and woman, not Herbie and the old lady.)
**Rating: **2/5
Rating: 2 / 5