Speed 2 Dvd [1997]

The sequel to one of the decade's defining action blockbusters should have been pretty straightforward. All Jan De Bont (the film's director) had to do was follow five rules. One, come up with an immensely high concept. Two, maintain the action at a relatively swift pace. Three, give Annie (Sandra Bullock's character) plenty to say because audiences love her. Four, introduce a psychotic villain to scowl and yell like Dennis Hopper. And five, give us plenty more of Keanu Reeves character, SWAT boy Jack Traven, to woo the hearts of the female audience and bust the balls of anyone who gets in his way.

Rule one receives a big fat tick, as the filmmakers come up with a neat reversal of the original. If the newly chosen mode of transport DOESN'T stop, then everyone is in trouble. From this point on though, everything else receives a big fat cross. Rule two is immediately stuffed up by setting the forthcoming events on...wait for it...a cruise ship, meaning the action now progresses with the momentum of a wounded snail attempting to navigate through a puddle of treacle. Rule three also screws up with the screenwriters' decision to relegate Sandra Bullock to the sidelines, oohing and aahing as the men battle it out.

Rule four dies the moment that Willem Dafoe begins to gurn like Jim Carrey with severe constipation. Worst of all, we are informed that his nutjob has a strange blood disease that requires him to apply leeches at regular moments throughout the film...to think that someone actually got paid to write this stuff. And as for rule five...well, it appears to have been thrown out of a very tall building, as it is goodbye Keanu Reeves and hello Jason 'mahogany' Patric. Add dialogue that lands with the thud of a computer instruction manual, as well as clumsy and quite simply pathetic directing, and you are left with a film that sinks to the ocean floor. A one star film at best and it was lucky to get that.

"Speed 2 Cruise Control" is the sequel to the hit blockbuster movie Speed. Directed by Jan De Bont it was released in 1997 (three years after it's predecessor) and stars Sandra Bullock, Jason Patric, Willem Dafoe, and Temuera Morrison.

I was a big fan of Speed and therefore I was really looking forward to watching it's sequel when it was released, but like so many others I was left rather disappointed.

Where Speed was more of a thriller, Speed 2 is more of a disaster-like adventure movie with some comedy (some unintentional) thrown in. This tended to upset some people who had certain expectations before watching the film. This change in film style while unexpected wasn't enough alone to condemn the film, but was simply the first insult.

In the film we encounter a computer genius who developed the navigation software in use on a number of cruise ships. After he is laid off due to ill health, he decides to take revenge by hi-jacking a large cruise ship called the Seabourn Legend. After taking over the ship, and forcing most of the crew and passengers to abandon ship he intends to navigate it to disaster. In his way and trying to put an end to his plans is a cop called Alex and his partner Annie who are on board for a holiday, as well as several remaining crew members. For the most part that's the entire plot - well the parts that I can remember anyway as Speed 2 didn't leave a good or lasting impression.

There's no denying that this film has some major faults. The first has to be the acting, which sadly isn't exactly great. The bad guy was more annoying than anything else. Jason Patric delivers a reasonable performance, but at the end of the day he's no where near as good as Keanu Reeves was in the first film. I'm not a big fan of Sandra Bullock at the best of times, but even she fell short of what I was expecting. I'm glad that Keanu Reeves turning down a part in this film, otherwise we may have someone different playing Neo in The Matrix.

The relationships portrayed between the characters was very unconvincing and shallow, and in general none of the characters were that interesting or memorable. Many of the characters are just run of the mill stereotypes and the script and awful dialogue does nothing to help matters.

The film is very slow to get started, which would be forgivable if the time was used to build up to something more that what we got. Things do pick up towards the end but in a somewhat predicable way, and doesn't justify the waste of time that the rest of the film is.

The plot of the film may seem interesting but is ultimately flawed. The idea of one man running around the ship being chased by another man tends to become old fast. The cruise ship seems to have rather fragile windows considering the pounding they must ensure at sea. More to the point however, did mobile phones not exist in 1997, or was it just that not a single person or crew member on board had one to alert the rest of the world to what was going on.

The bad guy has an unlikely illness and unlikely motive, which never really works and leaves a number of unanswered questions.

The ending to the film was flawed and insulting, without wanting to give anything away, I'll just say it's highly unlikely that so many people wouldn't see or hear something that big coming towards them.

At the end of the day while there was some briefly entertaining action and explosions, I doubt that a slow moving cruise ship was the correct setting for this film. If it wasn't for the poor acting, script, dialogue, characters, and plot, then Speed 2 may have been better. But then again that would mean having to abandon the film completely and start again fresh.

Possibly the worst film I have ever seen, it is full of impossibly stupid situations. The fact that the title refers to a more-than fast-paced situation, you would expect some action. But no. All you get is an annoyingly monotonous two hours of boredom. Sandra Bullock is especially disappointing considering her fiesty role in the original blockbuster. Jason Patrick is fairly likeable, but Bullock is irritatingly shrill to the extreme. My advice is to look elsewhere, as Jan De Bont here has delivered a poor movie on a not-too-exciting disc.