Welcome once again to another edition of In Defense Of…
This is the segment where I take a look at some of what have been declared bad or one of the worst movies or TV shows ever and actually try my damndest to defend these movies that are not as bad as everybody put them out to be.
With all that said, ladies and gentlemen of the internet jury, this is probably my biggest guilty pleasure next to Space Jam, I am here today speaking for the defense of…
Speed 2: Cruise Control
Back in 1994, Speed set a new standard for action movies at the time of its’ release and made superstars out of leading actors Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock and is easily one of the greatest action movies ever made.
Becoming one of the biggest successes of that summer, it seemed obvious that a sequel would have to follow. Original director Jan De Bont came up with the idea for the film after he had a recurring nightmare about a cruise ship crashing into an island. Speed star Keanu Reeves was initially supposed to reprise his role as Jack Traven for the sequel, but decided not to commit and was replaced by Jason Patric prior to filming.
The plot involves couple Annie (once again played by Sandra Bullock) and her new boyfriend Alex (Patric) taking a vacation in the Caribbean aboard a luxury cruise ship, which is hijacked by a villain named Geiger (Willem Dafoe) who hacked into the ship’s computer system. As they are trapped aboard the ship, Annie and Alex work with the ship’s first officer to try to stop the ship, which they discover is programmed to crash into an oil tanker.
Critics gave the film a mostly negative reception, criticizing its acting, story, and characters. One major criticism was that the film’s setting on a slow-moving cruise ship was much less thrilling than Speed ’s setting on a fast-moving bus. The film was a financial disappointment, earning $165 million worldwide against a budget of $110 million. It was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards, and won the award for “Worst Re-Make or Sequel”.
But not all the reviews were bad. In fact, guess who gave the most positive review of the film?
http://siskelandebert.org/video/BBG2D5S8HA6A/Speed-2–Ulee8217s-Gold–Broken-English-1997
Despite the overwhelming negative reviews, 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film did receive some positive feedback. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune both gave Speed 2 three out of four stars, and wrote the film’s only two positive reviews, respectively, on Rotten Tomatoes. On their film review TV series Siskel & Ebert, they collectively gave Speed 2 a positive rating of “Two Thumbs Up”, calling it a “truly rousing ocean liner adventure story”, although Ebert criticized Bullock’s more limited role in the sequel while Patric “stole all the action sequences”. Since his original review, Ebert claimed that he enjoyed Speed 2 more than Bullock, and wrote an article in 2013 that his favorable review of the film “inspired more disbelief” than any other he had written and was frequently cited as an example of him being a poor film critic. At the Conference on World Affairs in 1999, Ebert spoke about the difficulty of making films such as Speed 2 and defended his review by offering a “Speed 3” contest for anyone to create a five-minute short film that takes place on something that cannot stop moving.
I mean, the way I look at Speed 2, I look at it exactly the same way that Roger Ebert did. It is not a great action movie by any means but it is a very creative and a very energetic action movie. The action scenes and the special effects in particular are the highlight of the whole movie, the scene towards the end where the boat crashes into the pier, that does not look fake by any means and this was 1997 when they could’ve clearly done CG effects, the fact that they went practical and it doesn’t look fake at all is great.
That being said, this really is a guilty pleasure movie because a lot of the movie really pales in comparison to the first movie for a number of reasons.
One is the cast and the characters. Sandra Bullock is the only returning main cast member in this movie and she really is limited down compared to the first movie, they don’t give her much to do in this at all and the main focus of the movie is mostly on Jason Patric’s character and also Willem Dafoe. The movie clearly forgets that Sandra Bullock actually was an important part of the first movie and because of her, she was able to help Keanu Reeves get all the passengers off the bus before it explodes. Here, it’s just like “hey, Sandra, we know that you did so much in the first movie that was integral to the plot, why don’t you take a break for the movie and let the “big guys” take over?” And when I say “big guys”, I mean Jason Patric. And trust me, he’s no Keanu Reeves in this movie. He just comes off a stock leading man action hero you’d find in a B rate action movie, like something from the 90s direct-to-video action movie era. He’s not a terrible actor but he’s just not somebody who should be on the caliber of Keanu Reeves.
The only character in the movie that’s actually likeable is Willem Dafoe playing an even more cartoonishly evil villain than he does when he plays The Green Goblin. Even he realizes that he’s in on lousy the movie is but he’s not going to let that stop him from being over the top in this and he definitely lets himself go crazy a lot in this film.
But the biggest problem with the movie stems with the obvious reasoning for why this movie wasn’t a hit. What was it? Oh yeah, BOATS AREN’T FAST!!!!
For a follow up to Speed, a movie about a bus that couldn’t go under 50 miles an hour or else, it’ll explode, making every moment once that countdown stars every bit as tense as you can get, there’s really no excitement in watching a damn boat move slower than 3 miles an hour in an action sequel where the first movie was about going over 50 miles an hour. I mean, seriously, who the fuck thought this was a good idea? No wonder Family Guy made this funny joke about what Speed 3 would’ve been:
As a follow-up to Speed, it’s a mess. But, there’s just something about this movie that makes it one of those really great guilty pleasures for me. Maybe it’s because of just how stupid and pointless it is compared to the original, maybe it is because an exec at Fox looked at this and didn’t throw the writer out the window, maybe it is because of how uninspired it is, whatever it is, Speed 2: Cruise Control is one of the biggest guilty pleasures I like. Yeah, it’s a mess of a movie but it’s a fun mess and one of those so bad it’s good movies that’s definitely worth checking out every time.
And with that, the defense rests.
MOVIES MENTIONED IN THIS POST
Follow The Reviewing Network at our Facebook page at Facebook.com/TheReviewingNetwork for continuing updates and debuts for new blog posts and also follow my Twitter feed so you can see new postings right as they are posted.
The Reviewing Network 
[…] and the present such as Rush Hour 2, Catch Me If You Can, The Last Shot, Tower Heist, and yes, even Speed 2 and Indiana Jones 4….COME AT ME FOLKS!!! I’M A MAN, I’M 40…..actually, […]
[…] and the present such as Rush Hour 2, Catch Me If You Can, The Last Shot, Tower Heist, and yes, even Speed 2 and Indiana Jones 4….COME AT ME FOLKS!!! I’M A MAN, I’M 40…..actually, […]