Speed 2: Cruise Control

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Jason Patric and William Dafoe

Director: Jon De Bont

Release Date: 1997

Running Time: 2hrs 1 minute

Genre: Action

Rating: PG-13

Format: Blu-Ray

Synopsis:

Computer hacker John Geiger hacks into the system of the Seabourn Legend cruse liner and sets it speeding on a collision course towards a gigantic oil tanker.

A couple of years have passed since the first film took place, Annie is in a new relationship now with SWAT team member Alex. In order to spend a bit more time together, Alex books them both tickets to go on a cruise around the Caribbean on board the Seabourn Legend, however not everyone on board is in it for the adventure. Computer hacker John Geiger is also on board and wants to take his revenge by hacking into the ship's computer system. Speed 2 really isn't as bad as people make out, famous film critic Roger Ebert even admitted to really enjoying this film. Rumour has it, it was going to be the sequel to "Die Hard" if the movie flopped, of course we all know how well that movie did at the box office, so it became a sequel to "Speed" instead.

Starring Jason Patric and Sandra Bullock. Patric's performance isn't anywhere near as good as that of Reeve's in the first film however he still manages to come across as pretty convincing. He is however lacking in character and emotion somewhat. Either someone really pissed him off during filming or he has a serious case of resting bitch face. The relationship between Annie and himself isn't too bad, although Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock clearly had more chemistry on screen together. William Dafoe probably delivers the best performance in this film, although even then he could have put way more effort into his character. The movie is lacking in backstory and Dafoe is also lacking in characterization. In fact everyone is lacking in characterization a little bit.

Jon De Bont also directed the first film, however this film is seriously lacking in something, we've got the same writer as before Graham Yost, however De Bont also had a say in the storyline and in all honestly it could be where this film has gone wrong. Sometimes it's best to keep the writing to a professional or someone with a lot more experience. The conversations between actors aren't too bad, but the majority of them aren't very believable, most of the lines come across as cheesy and ridiculous.Sadly the storyline doesn't add up to the expectations of the first movie.

Visually it's not a bad looking film, however there are moments that look very false, you can practically see it's been filmed in a studio, it doesn't look very professional, this is supposed to be a movie, the idea is to make it look convincing right? When I say it looks false, believe it or not, it's not the interior set design, that looks bad, more the exterior shots of the ship, were they lacking on budget with this movie too? Now the interior set design does look very convincing, visually it does look very convincing, it sets the tone for the film very well, the actors use the environment to it's fullest. Its just a shame that in some scenes you can see the film has been poorly edited, perhaps the Blu-Ray emphasizes this fault, but you can near enough see the CGI. I've seen worse movies but it's a shame, especially considering how amazing the first filmed looked. Sadly the soundtrack does absolutely nothing for this film, it doesn't have depth or emotion, and definitely doesn't set any suspense. There are some seriously thrilling scenes in this film which are completely let down by a poor score. Such a shame.

Nowhere near as good as the first one, it doesn't look too bad on Blu-Ray, but there's nothing spectacular. This is the type of movie that most will put on their guilty pleasure lists. Poor acting and lacking in storyline.

3/5 stars