No one makes films with cop cars flying through the air and crashing in mounds any more. Maybe CGI undermined the currency, or maybe modern auto design makes them more difficult to stack.
So there's an added nostalgic tinge to this rerelease of the epic comedy from 1980, crazy and cameo-rich in the Hollywood tradition of Mike Todd's Around the World in 80 Days, starring a slimline Dan Aykroyd and an alive John Belushi as the Butch-and-Sundance of white R&B. They are "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues, a couple of deadpan guys who dress in dark suits and sunglasses, trying to reform their band and earn enough money to save the Chicago orphanage where they were raised. "Are you the police?", asks a baffled boarding-house landlady with the unfamiliar-sounding name of Mrs Tarantino. (They mishear it as "Toronto".) "No, ma'am, we're musicians."
The mere spectacle of Elwood and Jake in their shades isn't quite as giggle-inducing as it presumably was back in 1980, but the stunts are still awe-inspiring, and there's plenty of laughs. They really were thinking big.