Speed (1994)

As so aptly indicated by its title, the film is fast-paced! Thrilling and exciting from beginning to end with some amazing action sequences, and great suspense, as well. Awesome music and a great cast. This is a thrill-ride deluxe!

Speed is a fast paced, action packed movie that focuses all its attention on action and little to a logical story and dialogue sequence. There was little time for me to take a break from the high-tension action scenes because there could be (and was) another explosion or crash around every corner. Jack even made driving interesting as he launched his Crown Victoria into the air right at the beginning of the movie. Even though this was an original twist on an action film, the next scene was always predictable. Will the passengers survive? Will they make the jump? Will they blow up? These were easy questions to answer. The only unanswered questions I had were "Why don't they just..." questions such as "Why don't they just give him the damn money?" The dialogue was also a major downside to this film. From the first time every character talked, you could tell how they were going to act for the rest of the movie. Jack was going to be the heroic and smart lead, the bus driver was going to be too kind for his own good, Howard was going to be the evil psychopath, Annie was going to be the strong and assertive woman, and so on. Speed was also full of cheesy one-liners and flirting between the two main protagonists and didn't require much thought. However, that could be why this movie was so successful and can always be found while scrolling through channels. If you are coming home from a hard day's work and want to unwind, this may be the movie for you. Despite all the criticism, the high budget lead to some very realistic and believable special effects, good sets, and good camera work, even for today's standards. And it didn't have much of the textbook corny acting as seen in other action films around that time. Overall, if you haven't seen this it can be an interesting watch, but don't expect much from this 90's action film.

"Speed" is an American English-language film from 1994, so two more years only until this one has its 25th anniversary. It was directed by Jan de Bont (actually the first directorial effort of this prolific cinematographer) and written by Graham Yost and for both of them this (almost) 2-hour movie is among their most famous. One reason is that this film won 2 of its 3 Oscar nominations (lost Editing to Forrest Gump) and another is that this film is still considered one of the defining action films of the 1990s. It features the relatively young Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock and (the not so young) Dennis Hopper. This is obviously not a film about performances, but it needs to be said that Reeves was working the part nicely and Hopper was also good, but admittedly had very little to work with in terms of both screen time and material. Bullock on the other hand I don't even think the performance was a problem at all, but eventually her character was the weakest of the entire film and it is ridiculous she even got awards attention for her turn. It is the epitome of a badly-written female character in an action movie. Early on she gets hit on by a guy who is somewhat of a mini antagonist, but of course she is too good for him and then there are these banter moments with Reeves' character and we knew exactly where this was heading. She is a tough intelligent woman, but needs constant saving and nice words from the big hero. I cannot deny I would have preferred her character to be completely out of the picture, but I guess they did not want to go for a sausage fest. Oh well.Back to the positive: This film has a fairly massive runtime, but it never drags and has no lengths at all I would say. They weren't scared of sacrificing several of the good characters to show how evil the bad guy was and this is a brave movie that we do not always get. I also found it interesting how the movie, fitting the title, moves from slow to fast methods of transportation. It all starts in an elevator, then a bus (the core of the film), and eventually a metro train. Talking about the metro train, fans of the television show "The West Wing" will see (and hopefully enjoy) a familiar face in there. Back to this one here, this is not a film you want to go for if you are in need of realism. There were probably a hundred aspects that would not happen like that in reality or we can also include unrealistic plot developments here. There is a hole in the road and the rails aren't finished either? Nah. Also admittedly the screenplay is not particularly creative as all the ideas are fairly simple really, like the traffic jam, or the lack of fuel etc. But I will admit they still worked. As did the entire film. It has its weaknesses and I would not call it a classic, but it was a genuinely entertaining two hours. I give it a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out.

An crazy guy *eccentric guy* has rigged a elevator full of people to explode in an attempt to pressure the L.A.P.D into giving him money. But officer Jack and his friend Harry spoils his plan.So to get revenge and get money he puts a bomb on a bus. If the bus goes under 50 mph it explodes if anyone gets off the bus it explodes. So officer Jack gets on the bus to try and prevent it from exploding as they race through L.A at fast speed keeping it from crashing into the busy L.A traffic.The characters are about as deep as an splinter. Meanwhile a good movie would have side characters as deep as an knife and main characters as deep as a sword, this movies characters are about as shallow as it gets. The acting is terrible at times and just makes me laugh when i'm supposed to feel empathy for the characters. It's cheesy too but what can you expect from a 90's action movie. Even with all these flaws it's very enjoyable and i would really recommend watching it at least once.Also i noticed that the picture does not have that much contrast and looks very dull. In fact it's so dull that i turned the contrast up in VLC media player to compensate for it. This is something i have never had to do before with any other movie.The movie never really slows down it's just action scene after action scene, it actually gets ridiculous after a while and if it ever does slow down then 20 seconds later the bus will be jumping over a ramp or maybe crashing into a unsuspecting car. There's not really any story to it, it's just plot.I feel as if Michael Bay just took all his inspiration from Speed and just cranked it up.Enough with the negatives i'll tell you what the best part of the movie is. The fact that they are playing 2001: A Space Odyssey in the Grauman's Chinese Theatre.I'll give the movie a 6,5/10 enjoyable but nothing more than that.