Speed 2: Cruise Control Review

by Chuck Dowling (chuckd21 AT southeast DOT net)
July 2nd, 1997

Speed 2:Cruise Control (1997) **1/2 out of ***** - Cast: Sandra Bullock,
Jason Patric, Willem Dafoe, Glenn Plummer, Colleen Camp, Joe Morton, Tim
Conway, Kimmy Robertson. Directed by: Jan de Bont. Running Time: 100 minutes.

Having the word "speed" in your film's title carries with it some
responsibility. To use the word "speed" in your film's title, you need to
either have a fast paced story, or at the very least, an object important to
the story which moves very very fast. "Speed 2:Cruise Control" has neither
one, which should almost make you feel cheated as you watch it.

Sandra Bullock returns from "Speed" as Annie. She's dumped Keanu Reeves and
hooked up with another member of the "suicide team", played by Jason Patric.
You can easily tell though, that this whole thing was written for Reeves,
who backed out at the last minute. Anyway, the new happy couple go on a
vacation aboard a cruise ship, and darn the luck, it's being taken over by a
psycho (Willem Dafoe).

Dafoe is a disgruntled former employee of the cruise line who designed all
the computer systems onboard. He developed some sort of copper blood
poisoning illness from the computers (or something like that) and so the
company immediately fired him. Now he's out for revenge. He plans to steal a
fortune in jewelry from the ship's vault and then ram the ocean liner into
an oil tanker.

Willem Dafoe is adequate, yet nothing special as the villain. But it's
refreshing that he's working alone. He doesn't have a team of bad guys, and
none of the crew members reveal themselves to be bad guys during the film.
Bullock's character has gotten awfully annoying, and her main purpose in the
film is to make repeated references to her character's experiences from the
first film. Patric makes a satisfactory replacement for Keanu Reeves, and he
actually fares the best of all the cast. And I always like to keep track of
former cast members of "Twin Peaks" when they get work. Here, Kimmy
Robertson who played Lucy the secretary shows up as the ship's cruise
director.

The film's main flaw is it's big sequence towards the end where the ship is
heading, very slowly, towards an island. This scene goes on forever, and
shockingly is done with a sense of "Wheeee!" as mass destruction occurs,
people's lives and property are ruined and quite possibly many people could
be brutally maimed or killed. This sense of gleeful whimsy in the scene is
almost insulting. And during this sequence there's yet another "dog in
peril" scene, a movie trend which I am completely sick of.

"Speed 2:Cruise Control" isn't a bad film, and it's certainly better that
most of this summer's offerings. But what keeps it from achieving a good
rating is that it's just hopelessly standard action fare. There's nothing
new in it to distinguish it from any other action movie of its type. And
usually when you make a sequel, you want to try and outdo SOMETHING from the
previous film. Not one moment here even comes close to being as good as
anything from the original. [PG-13]

--
Chuck Dowling

Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/
Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, film related links, and reader's reviews.

More on 'Speed 2: Cruise Control'...


Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.