The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Wow, "The Big Bus" is so funny! I remember I wanted to see this when it came out when I was a kid but it didn't work out. It took many years before I was able to watch this in one viewing. It's great. A great '70s comedy,. A great comedy "period". It's played perfectly. It's played straight but not too straight, kind of. The balance everybody achieved is incredible. The great Joe Bologna is excellent. The rest of the cast is almost as good. It came out four years before "Airplane" but right in the middle of Mel Brooks' films. I need to watch it more often.

A double-decker, nuclear-powered super-bus called the Cyclops One makes its maiden voyage from New York City to Denver, but immediately there are problems: the scientist behind Cyclops One was almost killed before the bus even left the terminal, while the lead driver is under duress from a recent bus crash in which he was accused of eating the passengers...oh and, yes, there's a bomb on-board. In 1976, disaster movies hadn't yet outlived their usefulness as "dramatic entertainment", so "The Big Bus" came off as cynical (it was really just two or three years ahead of its time). There are some big laughs, mostly early on: René Auberjonois is dryly funny as a frustrated priest, Lynn Redgrave as a fashionista has a great bit dressing the passengers in her new Fall line, Ruth Gordon is a hoot as always playing a mouthy old lady (what else?) and Murphy Dunne is terrific as lounge pianist Tommy Joyce. The screenplay by Lawrence J. Cohen and Fred Freeman flirts with outrageousness without ever getting us there. The movie, filled with familiar goof-offs from television, is too middle-of-the-road to provide the kind of lunatic highs David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abraham would eventually deliver with 1980's "Airplane!" This plays more like a Mel Brooks clone, something along the lines of "Silent Movie". ** from ****

I have seen this film over and over since I was a kid. I love this movie. i can watch it start to finish any time. The acting is great and the lines never get old. I grew up on this movie and it is by far one of my all time top 5 movies. I encourage anyone who has never seen it to watch. Maybe I love it because I liked it as a kid and therefor I loved it as an adult. But, I have watched it very recently and still find it a great movie. Will always be one of my favorite movies of all time. I think anyone who watches this movie with an open mind will enjoy it and it will become one of their favorite as well. My sis and I grew up on this movie and we still, 17 years after the first time we watched it we still quote lines to each other. We never give cheers to each other without the all time "up yours" comment from the bicentennial dinner.

This is a stupid film. I admit it. The acting is very broad, the script is dopey as can be and every element of the film says "DUMB" but it all works because the film never takes itself seriously and makes no pretense. Yes, it is meant to be stupid! I mean, just think about the plot--an air or sea disaster movie that instead occurs on a bus! And, this is no ordinary bus, but seems about 25,000 square feet (minimum) inside--complete with a huge lounge, seating for a huge number of passengers and even a bowling alley!! Plus, you add other plot ideas like a co-driver named "Shoulders" because he keeps driving over the shoulders of the road, a bomb planted aboard and the bus is actually NUCLEAR-POWERED!!! This movie is pure escapist fun. If you want something deep or really enjoy the films or Fellini or Truffaut and hate anything else, then this movie is not for you. If you like pure dopiness and could use a laugh, then this film is exactly what you need.