Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Let's be realistic.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The 1st half of this movie is laugh out loud hysterical but then the last 30 minutes are a complete bore. The 1st and best of the Cheech and Chong series of movies, stars Cheech as a poor Latino-American with nothing much going on other than his low rider car. Chong plays a privileged white hippie dude who doesn't want to do anything but get high. They meet when Chong is hitchhiking and Cheech picks him up. They end up smoking the largest joint that has ever been constructed! When they get pulled over for going 2 mph, the entire car is filled with smoke so thick that you could cut it with a knife. There are a bunch of other funny scenes like when this girl snorts Ajax thinking it's cocaine or how their van's exterior is made completely of weed. The band stuff gets a little boring at the end but the movie as a whole still stands the test of time. Cheech's song "I'm just a Love Ma-cheen" will get stuck in your head.

Guess White Castle hadn't made it out West, yet.Well, it only took me 40 years to see my first Cheech & Chong movie. I just thought: What the hell? Haven't seen one yet and they're definitely part of the film culture. Without seeing them together, I am familiar with Chong and his numerous arrests and Cheech from The Golden Palace and From Dusk Till Dawn. So much so, it was kinda hard to separate him from his three roles in one of my favorite vampire films.Previously, I had avoided their films because, frankly, the leads looked so incredibly dirty and disgusting, like they haven't showered in weeks, if at all. In fairness, that stance hasn't changed, though it's more on the Chong side than Cheech. He looked fairly well kept up whereas Chong looks like you could smell him a mile away.That all said, I actually had higher expectations from this as it's pretty much considered a comedic classic. True, I laughed out loud at many of the jokes but was let down by the enormous amounts of dead air and the even less time spent on the script.Of course, this wasn't meant for a Screenplay win at the Oscars, nor am I the target demographic. But, it still can be chock-full of jokes and with less stretches of time with absolutely nothing happening of interest. I kept thinking back to The Blues Brothers just two years after this. Totally not my type of film and it took a ton of convincing on my part to finally see that a few years back. I literally couldn't stop laughing for long stretches of time and throughout. Here I was laughing and then waiting 10-15 minutes for something to happen and then a few chuckles and then another 10 minutes of patiently waiting to laugh again.To describe the plot is pointless. Let's just say: aimless dudes meet, fall in friendship love and end up at a clichéd Battle of the Bands for...reasons. Well, it is established Pedro "Cheech" De Pacas is in a weird band, but the entire movie really is about trying to score drugs, getting chased by cops and driving. Lots and lots of driving. I think half the budget went to the gas station.Perhaps I'm thinking too deep here, but I've seen my share of extremely funny and well-written stoner movies. Granted most of those are much more recent than this 40-year-old film. So, I guess I'll cut it some slack.***Final thoughts: Crossing this duo off my bucket list. While I, again, laughed pretty hard at some of the scenes, it was just enough to puff, puff, pass on their follow-up films.

Two stoners unknowingly smuggle a van -- made entirely of marijuana -- from Mexico to Los Angeles, with incompetent Sgt. Stedenko on their trail.Although Cheech and Chong made several films together, they will probably always be best remembered for this one, their first. There are so many moments that have since become a part of pop culture. The use of War's "Low Rider", the smoking of the Labrador... when watching it for the first time you might feel like you have seen it before.Those into drug culture may appreciate the film more, but being a stoner is certainly not required to laugh at the antics of these two luckless losers.

Hey, man!... (uh)... You know, man, like, Up In Smoke, man, is, like, actually so bad, man, that it's, like, you know, man, almost good, man!... Yeah, man!I'd say that Up In Smoke is probably the one and only one-note-joke movie out there that actually doesn't even try to pretend to be anything else, but just that - A One-Note-Joke.And as a one-note-joke (some of it funny, some of it not), Cheech & Chong sure got plenty of mileage out of being 2 of the biggest and most bungling dope-heads you're ever going to encounter in any blinding cloud of marijuana smoke.From smoking dog crap, to picking up jail-bait, to snorting Ajax, to being hotly pursued by the laughable Sargent Stedenko & his narcotics squad, Cheech & Chong (as those 2 bong-headed bozos, Pedro & Stoner) ultimately become a rock'n'roll sensation when they appear live on stage in "The Battle of the Bands" at the Roxy Theater.And, hey, man, you don't have to be stoned, man (but it might help), to enjoy this nearly plot-less movie. But, hey, try to be at least in a fairly good frame of mind and don't expect anything Oscar-worthy from Up In Smoke and that way its disappointment-factor won't amount to too much.You know, this is actually a kinda tough movie to rate - The best way that I can describe Cheech & Chong is to say that they were the Beavis & Butthead of the late 1970s and Up In Smoke is certainly a prime example of their bad-ass brand of stoner-comedy that boasts no rivals.