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Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)

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213 comments in total

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36 out of 43 people found the following comment useful :-
slower, poorer..., 14 September 2003
Author: dbdumonteil

The enormous success of "Speed" in 1994 could only create a (poor) sequel. The less we can say is that the scriptwriters have got a great narrow-mindedness. Here, the bus was replaced by a cruise ship and the movie doesn't work, partly due to this: a cruise ship can't go as fast as a bus even if it's trapped.

Then, Keanu Reeves' absence can terribly be felt. His replacement is so colorless and listless that Sandra Bullock almost steals the show from him. Moreover, as a rule, "Speed2: cruise control" is supposed to be a suspense film. Well, in this case, where's the suspense? The filmmaker doesn't succeed in creating the suspense and he even can't create a disturbing atmosphere. The end of the movie falls into the ridiculous when the ship is entering the dock and destroys everything in its path.

At the end: one of the worst sequels ever made.

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22 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
Everyone to the lifeboats! Women, children and paying moviegoers first., 19 June 2002

Author: Chris Brown (christopher6453@hotmail.com) from Fresno, CA USA

Let the screenwriters and director go down with the ship I say. As the sun sets slowly in the West, Speed 2: Cruise Control sinks without a trace. The sequel to 1995's surprise drive-a-bus hit has barely caused a ripple at the box office. The threadbare script is mostly to blame. It consists almost entirely of simplistic, exclamation-point dialogue like, "We're gonna crash!" "We're going too fast!" "Do something!" "This isn't happening!" "We gotta get him outta here!" "There's not much time left!" and the ever useful, "Oh, s**t!"

There is, indeed, not much time left for characterization or interpersonal drama. Speed 2 gets off to a winky-dinky start with Sandra Bullock taking yet another disastrous driving test. Bullock's natural charm can go only so far, however, and you keep wanting to throw her a life preserver or a new script. As people drop dead around her, she must continue to whine about the ruination of her vacation. Bullock doesn't get a lot of help from blandish co-star Jason Patric, who plays her cop boyfriend. The nasty, computer-literate villain, who likes to attach blood-sucking leeches to his body, is certainly quirky. Willem Dafoe, who's pretty quirky himself, does what he can with the overriding vagaries of his character's mad-bomber motivation. The action bits are fairly frequent, but seem anemic when compared to what else is available to fans of such. Director Jan De Bont fared much better in 1996 with the flying cows and funnel clouds of Twister. Speed 2 ends up with some highly anticipated destruction as the cruise ship plows into the island of St. Martin. No matter, as I hear the whole thing was computer-generated anyway. This cruise is no carnival, and could have used a cameo by Kathie Lee. Would loved to have seen Dafoe slap her around a bit.

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23 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
Made worse by the knowledge of the brilliant film it succeeds, 11 January 2004
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

Having long since broken things off with her boyfriend, Annie and her new beau plan a romantic holiday on an ocean liner. When onboard a disgruntled ex-employee of the liner disables the computer controls and sets it on a collision course while he escapes with his goods. Alex has to take him on and try to stop the ship as it `races' out of control.

As if Twister hadn't done it already, Speed 2 basically showed us that the potential that was shown by De Bont's debut was clearly misplaced and he has yet to show he was really anything other than in the right place at the right time when it came to Speed. The smell of desperation is in the air from the very start when Reeves declined to star, although Bullock was more desperate and did it. This caused Annie to repeatedly state that `relationships built on etc etc never work out', all in an effort to explain it away and help the audience move on. That the film is constantly harking back to a much better film is a big problem, it would almost have been smarter just to move totally away than to retread.

The plot is plain silly and never gets close to being involving. To demonstrate this, I never once gave a rats' ass what was happening - people got crushed by the boat and mangled in it's propellers (unseen) but the film (or me) never care and never lingers. Likewise the supposed big climax is unengaging and smacks of desperation - bang for buck and all that. The whole set up never really feels immediate or threatening, even when the boat swings out of control it is difficult to feel terrified as the boat slooooowly goes towards the tanker, worst come to worst people can jump off to safety. The cruiser setting also is daft when seen beside the bus concept - the vast majority of the audience will ride a bus quite often, very few of us can relate to an ocean liner! The speed is a problem and it is almost laughable it works so poorly!

The cast is another problem. Bullock tries to repeat her sparky performance from the first film - when she manages it, it only feels like an impression, when she doesn't manage it she is cast as a shrieking beauty needing saving. However she also struggles from a lack of chemistry with Patric. It is a shame as he is an OK actor but not used to a pure action role and not used to not having material to work with. He lacks charisma and is quite unconvincing. Dafoe is awful; he drags the film down as much as anyone. His villain is a joke and never threatens in the way that Hopper's did (who managed to be funny and scary). It is a bad impression all round. The support cast of `innocents in peril' do much the same as the ones on the bus did, but we care less about them - they are well off and are separated from the action; those on the bus were in the thick of it and `normal' people who we could relate to.

Overall this is as good a reason for not making unplanned sequels as any - there should be a board to approve all sequels to prevent cashing in! The memory of the original is cheapen by this nasty film that is uninspiring and unthrilling at best, dull and stupid at worst. De Bont never gets up a decent head of steam and he shows his inability to inject drama out of his own skill - anyone can point a camera, not everyone can (or should) direct. A dull 2 hours later, I was wondering why I wasted my time with a film that was so clearly all at sea.

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17 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Speed?, 20 February 2006

Author: mutty_mcflea from Bristol, UK

This sequel to a chronically overrated original is a voyage to the bottom of the barrel, with Sandra Bullock and bland Jason Patric going for a nice cruise only for computer nut Willem Dafoe and his leeches to hijack the ship. Erk! The witless screenplay consists of characters explaining what's just happened, the title is a misnomer because the pace is so slow, and Bullock is bloody annoying, although to be fair she has nothing to do besides whine a lot while looking good. The film's saving graces are Mark Mancina's score (great credits music) and Dafoe, who recognises this for the rubbish it is and hams it up like a right mad bastard.

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13 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Speed 2: Snooze control, 7 April 2003

Author: Rob Taylor (Rob_Taylor) from London

Now I liked Sandra Bullock in the original Speed. I even liked her in that film where she went into a beauty pageant. But in this monstrosity, I just wanted to slap her repeatedly and say "What are you doing!?"

She is just dire. Not in acting (well... any more than usual, anyway) but just in the way her character made you want to shake her until she regained some sense. Whoever was responsible for the script needs a good beating here. Unless I am completely mistaken, her character between the events of the first film and this one, turned into a complete and total airhead bimbo.

Add in Jason Patric (who will never be leading man material) and it seems that only Willem Dafoe was having any fun. Truly awful!

But it is good to see that ocean liners, which may have to weather tropical storms, apparently have windows made of glass so easy to break that anyone can hurl themselves through them on a whim. Priceless cinema.

Avoid this one if you liked the original.

Avoid this one if you expect a thrilling sea drama.

Avoid this one if you like Sandra Bullock.

Avoid this one if....well....just avoid it.

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15 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
Speed 2 Lost Control, 15 January 2005

Author: au_law2001 from Philippines

Nah, it just isn't worth watching, or renting, why? Well let's just say it didn't live up to the first one. It wasn't very fast paced, or exciting, it was very predictable. And it's mostly them on the boat, trying to get everyone out, because it is out of control. It lost most of the elements the first one had. It didn't have the 'speed' theme, it was mostly a boat out of control, how? Someone just hacked it, and there it went, it wasn't on the threat of terrorists, there wasn't the threat of a bomb explosion, and it wasn't even sinking. Where's the excitement? The movie doesn't even deserve to be called 'Speed' because there was nothing about 'speed' in it, sure it had Sandra Bullock in it, but Keanu Reeves was missing in it. If you want to see a film about a boat out of control, just watch Titanic.

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17 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
A MISERABLE EXPERIENCE...., 29 July 1999

Author: D'MORPH from Auckland, New Zealand

After seeing THE best action movie ever (Speed) I went to this expecting more of the same awesome action.

Instead I was physically sea sick! Sat through the entire thing feeling like I was at sea in a teacup (in the middle of a cyclone), made worse by the terrible acting (even Temuera Morrison wasn't up to par in this) and lame 'action scenes'. The baddie wasn't bad enough, his reasons for hijacking the ship was just plain dumb, and Keanu Reeves, where the heck was he?

This whole flick was over-the-top-bad, trying waaaaay too hard to equal Speed One. But putting all the action on a cruise ship - a SMALL cruise ship at that? There was twice as much action in the elevator scene at the beginning of Speed One!

I found the gigantic tanker explosion, the ship crashing through the dock at the end TOO long and boring. By this time, however, the sea sickness had subsided (probably because the ship had already landed!) The ending would've been easier to bare if the characters hadn't said such dumb cliches....

I think I should've stayed at home....

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13 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
A big boat full of crap, 6 June 2004

Author: lambaldy from Oisterwijk, The netherlands

Speed. the first movie wasn't that bad, and so the other day I decided to watch speed 2, which appeared on television here. (god knows why) After 2 minutes I realized why Keanu didn't accept the role for this second part. The entire movie is filled with extremely bad timed jokes and unrealism beyond recognition... The killer being sandra bullock chainsawing open a fire door with people trapped behind that door (as if there wouldn't be an emergency handle, and what the **** is a chainsaw doing near the cabins?!?) After completing this task sandra keeps the chainsaw in the opening she just made. the people look at her and say she has to get out of the way with the chainsaw. she looks back, doesn't respond. They have to ask AGAIN and then she's all like: "oh oh oh, yeah yeah yeah yeah, sorry sorry sorry." taking another 5 minutes to apologize before she finally removes the roaring blade....

another great feature about this movie is the fact that people have to die 4 times before actually dying, or other impossible things that somehow the actors can make possible with their magic wand or something. a nice example: **** SPOILER **** The bad guy (i didn't even bother remembering his name) is flying one of those water planes. He isn't really paying attention as he flies over an oil tanker and hits the mast with a speed over 50 mph at minimum... Instead of crashing down or getting hit off course, nooo... the plane instantly stops and gets stuck at the top of the mast. The bad guy naturally hasn't a scratch. Then suddenly the plane decides to explode, taking the entire oil tanker with it. Of course there couldn't be any safety measures on board, since oil isn't flammable at all.

anyway my conclusion is that speed 2 is a blown up piece of poo, and should have never been made. this is one of those movies just to get people in the seats, leaving them to die of boredom in the theatre. (and was probably a career killer for sandra bullock, too....)

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18 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
Speed 2: Cruise Control, 27 June 1999

Author: Tim Cox from Marietta, OH

Sad sequel to the early 90's hit with Bullock and Patrick playing a vacationing couple who save the day when a madman (overbearing and overacting Willem Dafoe) commandeers their cruise ship. Director Jan DeBont still pours energy into the effects, but the story and performances lack that polish and care.

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Pitiful, 2 September 1998

Author: Boyo-2

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I can't believe adults were responsible for this movie, it is so utterly stupid that the it seems like the patients escaped and decided to make a movie and call it "Speed 2". Completely horrible from beginning to end, as obvious as the sky, and boring. Poor Willem Dafoe...well, at least there won't be a third "Speed". I thought the original was totally overrated also.

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