SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1997 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
(1997) ** (out of four)
I don't know if action movies have gotten worse in general or if I've just seen too many of them to appreciate the reworkings of the same cliches. SPEED 2 is an action sequel that pales completely in comparison to the original. This one is part POSEIDON ADVENTURE and part UNDER SEIGE. Very few parts are worth watching, due mainly to the fact that director Jan De Bont's creation reminds me less of the first SPEED and more of his follow-up TWISTER. There is no intelligence to the script -- no interesting characters, original plot and only a few clever lines of dialogue. And here, there are no tornadoes to cover that up.
The action this time is centered around a cruise ship. Sandra Bullock, almost as annoying here as she was in TWO IF BY SEA, is on vacation with her boyfriend (Jason Patric). He's a hero cop who's always running off to save the world, as we learn in the movie's prologue. The first time we got Keanu Reeves and Jeff Daniels defusing a bomb; this time, it's a motorcycle chase with Patric's stunt double while Bullock flunks her driver's test. Disgruntled DMV employee Tim Conway plays the comic foil for the woman driver, in a case of DORF NEEDS A PAYCHECK.
Anyway, back to the cruise -- everything goes normally for a few scenes as we meet the cast of one-note disaster characters. There's the deaf child in peril, the charasmatic black man, a few fat people, even a female singer (one of many POSEIDON ADENTURE flashbacks). And there's the oddball who brings not one but two laptop computers onboard. In the Information Age, that spells trouble. Yep, he's some kind of computer programmer / hacker, and also one of those mad bomber types.
Played by a very miscast Willem Dafoe, the villain is motivated by no more than simple revenge. He designed the ship's computer system and they fired him when he turned crazy. Bad idea, because he's back and he's got a bathtub full of leeches. The leeches provide that "Boy, he's nuts!" moment that's a steady staple of these movies. Dafoe takes over the ship's controls and has the ship evacuated. All the passengers get off except for that core group of idiots who end up either cheating death or dying by the end of the film.
Two of the remaining passengers are, of course, Patric and Bullock. In the extremely-long hour or so that follows, there are explosions, floods, a rescue from a falling lifeboat, a boat chase, a scene where Patric almost gets sucked into the ship's propeller, the ship almost crashes into an oil tanker, etc. etc. etc. There's even a POSEIDON moment where Patric is in rising flood waters with the charasmatic black man and has to dive down, holding his breath. Where's underwater swimming champion Shelley Winters when you need her? The only interesting sequence is when the cruise ship actually crashes through an island town and destroys everything in sight, like a scene from TWISTER. I kept looking for a flying cow, but never managed to see one. Again I ask, where's Shelley Winters when you need her?
The original SPEED, which was original and managed to mix thrilling action with good characters and dialogue, is a hard act to follow. It seems like De Bont didn't even try to make a good movie. He just figured if he used enough rapid cuts of the stock action sequences, the rest of the movie would write itself. People who have seen enough action movies know exactly what's coming. With SPEED, if the bus went under 50 miles an hour, it would blow. With SPEED 2, if your IQ is over 50, it will blow.
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