Slo-Mo Big Air

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Bullitt Time

A key escape technique in our hero's arsenal—their car can actually fly, but only very slowly.

Police cars in Hot Pursuit frequently achieve Slo-Mo Big Air but generally with disastrous results because Every Car Is a Pinto.

An actual ramp or other apparatus for launching the car into the air may be required - unless the chase takes place in San Francisco, whose steep "stair streets" make for an excellent place to grab a lot of air.

Furthermore, being that the heroes typically have a Cool Car, the matter that landing from such jumps would mean serious and irreparable damage to the car's structural integrity is never an issue.

Examples of Slo-Mo Big Air include:

Film

• The Blues Brothers had this in their Bluesmobile. Some say it was because they were on a Mission from God. Apparently, the director said "It's just a magic car!".
• Bullitt has its famous car chase scene that is likely the Ur Example of this trope.
• Der Clown – Payday. Not only do all cars that are sent flying in this movie adaptation of a German action show perform corkscrews and other insane maneuvers in slow motion—the heroes even manage to drive their minivan out of town after it flew some 10 feet high, spun around, smashed hard into the concrete, and rolled over, a stunt which would lead to the immediate explosion of the car in many Hollywood flicks.
• Parodied in Ferris Buellers Day Off, when two garage attendants steal the Ferrari. A later scene shows them on their joyride, getting serious air time while the Star Wars theme is playing.
  • Don't forget his leap over the lawn chairs in the race home at the end.
• The final car chase in Gone in Sixty Seconds features a car that's apparently capable of entering low earth orbit.
  • Also, it zig-zags up and down while in the air.
  • And then there's the original movie from 1974 where the Big Air scene towards the end is shown about half a dozen times in Slo Mo and then once more in one cut with a fixed camera at normal speed.
• As one might guess, The Matrix trilogy loves this trope. It's subverted once in the first movie when Morpheus demonstrates the roof-to-roof jump to Neo. He covers so much height and distance that a slow-mo would be needless.
• Done by the main character in Rad on his BMX while he's being chased by the local law enforcement.
• In the movie Speed, this is done with a bus.
• Triple-X does this multiple times within the first half hour of XXX. First with a Corvette, and all the other times with a motorcycle.

Live-Action TV

• Each and every episode of The Dukes of Hazzard. As a matter of fact, that show would be unrecognizable without this trope.
• KITT on Knight Rider had a "turbo boost" function that unfailingly resulted in Slo Mo Big Air. A bit more justified than many, as the dialog hinted KITT had some sort of rocket assist in order to get airborne. Furthermore, since it's well established that KITT is near-indestructible, KITT can go jumping all day if he has to and never worry about being damaged.
• Common enough on Mannix that whenever it occurs in Mystery Science Theater 3000, one of the bots will yell "Mannix!"
• Happens in an episode of The Professionals, thereby revealing there are two crash test dummies in the front seat. One of whom has its head fall off in slow motion.

Video Games

• It's MOLASSES TIME! In Backyard Skateboarding, just get this, move up a big ramp, and you'll go flying really slowly.
• When you go over the super-jumps in Burnout Paradise, you're treated to one of these with the camera flashing. With the slo-mo it often becomes painfully obvious if you're going to make it or not.
• Driv3r gives the player the choice to switch to Slo Mo in mid-game whenever they please as long as they're using a vehicle, including (but not limited to) the frequent Big Air scenes.
• Occurs in every Grand Theft Auto starting with GTA 3 any time the player hits a ramp fast enough to catch some air.
  • One of the Vice City missions was just a string of these as you drove your bike around the roofs of a quarter of the city, making jumps from one to the next.
  • San Andreas had this for one of the missions for the predetermined path for the player to go by. Hearing Catalina curse at you while the game was playing in slow motion during your big jump is exceptionally hilarious.
• Every single Need for Speed game from Hot Pursuit 2 onwards punctuates Big Air with Slo Mo, though there's always an option to disable this.
• In Scarface the World Is Yours, this sometimes appears in the lead-up to a large "Air Time Bonus".
• The Interceptor in the 2001 Spy Hunter game has a turbo boost which results in this if used while approaching a ramp (or other suitable terrain.)
• In Tony Hawk's Underground, a free-roam in Hawaii in search of places to do great tricks for a skateboard video culminates in the player hitting a ramp on the roof of a hotel, launching themselves over a hovering helicopter, hitting a Mc Twist, missing the whirling blades by a foot or two, and dropping an incredible thirty stories without injury, in slow-motion.
  • There was also a cheat in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 to achieve this effect; on the cheat select screen it was called "Matrix air".

Western Animation

• Possibly the earliest example is the Mach 5 in Speed Racer.

Web Comics

• In PVP the characters wished for General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard - and it occasionally reappeared as a Running Gag, always in mid-jump, before the Time Skip.