So wait, this is a sequel to Speed, a surprise action hit, and it’s focus is on Sandra Bullock’s character Annie and not on Keanu. Why the hell even bother with this movie? Was Sandra’s’ character the most compelling aspect of the movie and audience were just screaming more movies with her as the star? I just don’t get this movie at all. I think as an action film fan, this is the just one of the shittiest, most disappointing and uneventful action movies I have ever seen. I mean Titanic had more thrills on the high seas than this movie.
Sandra Bullock returns as Annie Porter, an accident-prone ditz who is thrilled when her boyfriend Alex (Jason Patric) presents her with two tickets for a cruise ship vacation to the Bahamas. The trip is a peace offering presented because Annie has just learned that Alex is a police officer who’s been lying to her about his choice of profession. Little does the happy couple know that the disgruntled John Geiger (Willem Dafoe), designer of the ship’s computer system, has plotted a violent takeover of the vessel and a diamond hijacking that puts everyone on board in mortal danger. Being the dashing police officer he is, Alex leaps into action and tries to stop Geiger, but not before the ship crashes at top velocity into a Caribbean port town. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
Apparently Keanu had some premonition that this movie was going to be a huge ship wreck (BOOM boat joke) and dropped at the last minute. Good for him cause this was just horrific in terms of story, acting, action, plot holes that a boat could drive through and just a terrible premise altogether. First, I don’t know of a great way to show that this boat is basically barreling down the open seas at such a high speed and out of control and the director didn’t know either. There is no sense of speed at all in that I am not sure that the boat is moving any faster than what a pair of rowers could. This is supposed to be a thrill ride and I don’t see it cruising by other boats that are slower than it. That’s what made the first movie exciting, seeing the bus careening through town at high speeds!
Aside from the lame sense of speed in this movie, the characters are just so dull. I get that Sandra is America’s Sweetheart or whatever, but Annie is this walking calamity of problems and callousness. She cause the direct deaths of several passengers in this movie and just kind of makes a throw away joke to deflect that she did anything wrong. She does more to cause harm and problems than helping. Jason Patric is just not even trying this movie. His character goes between wanting to kill the bad guy and trying to apprehend him so he dispense some aquatic justice or something. In one scene he tries to stop the bad guy by drawing a gun on him and looking to cuff him, then the bad guy slips into a hallway and closes the door. Patric just outright shoot at him because he wasn’t apparently being chivalrous enough to keep the door open. So he goes from good sea cop to bad cop and just wants to shoot him all of a sudden.
Let’s talk about the villain who also happened to be the only fun character in this movie. Willem Dafoe couldn’t look more like a villain in this movie, aside from having an evil mustache. He is a computer tech with some awesome wrist computer thing that he could easily sell for tons of money instead of coming up with an elaborate high sea heist of diamonds. But no, his character is relegated to cheesy villain like one liners and grinning like a shark while he opens and closes doors, floods different rooms, and speeds up the ship to like 10 knots (which I am not certain if it is fast or anything). Oh and his character is motivated by the fact that he was fired because he has coppper poisoning or something and needs evil leeches to medicate him or something asinine. Those leeches aren’t even need for the plot other than to showcase how mad and insane he is. By the way, copper poisoning is treatable.
Christ, this movie is bad and shitty in the sense of how uneventful and boring it was to watch this movie. The action sequences are entertaining at all. They misuse comedy elements in the wrong places for audience, like when some passengers are sucked into the propeller and she just says “oops” like she accidentally tripped someone. The only eye catching scene of this movie is the finale sequence where the boat crashes into a port city and demolishes it. That is it. The movie has no excitement behind it and the actors and actresses are about as exciting as watching water fill a room. I just, it’s an action movie and even the bad ones are entertaining to a relative degree. I am no as mad as say when I watched Jack and Jill, but this is just a different level of shitty. Giant boat sized plot holes, non-sensical plot, stupid action scenes and no Keanu. Abandon ship indeed.