Theme: Boats

Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) – Sandra Bullock

There’s no Keanu Reeves this time round, but Sandra Bullock is back, along with the odd half decent supporting cast member.

There are some weak attemps at sitcom humour early on, followed by a Pedovore joke at the 19 minute mark (marking the beginning of a long run of similarly themed dodginess — only some of which will be recognised by the viewer, if any).

This movie eventually starts to become interesting, shortly after 20 minutes in, as the main antagonist tricks his way into the ship’s control room and secretly plants a listening device under the table, with everyone in the room oblivious.

Unfortunately, after a brief interesting patch, the movie reverts to back-to-back examples of couples fighting. Once on the TV they’re watching, then once between the last cast members. I think it’s safe to say already that this is not a particularly serious action movie, and its producers are far more interested in toying with the viewer. No wonder Keanu turned it down, in spite of him being fond of Sandra Bullock.

Before the end of the first hour, there’s a prolonged panic-fest as people try to abandom ship, someone gets stuck in a lift, some people fall off the side of the ship, etc. Hardly high quality entertainment.

By the 1 hour mark it’s got quite a mix of action and drama. It looks set for a So-So rating if it continues at this level of production. There’s people being trapped in flooded rooms, and people being trapped in rooms with bombs going off. It’s clearly not designed to be consistently pleasant viewing, but if you fast forward through what needs skipping you can still somewhat enjoy it.

Most of the last hour consists of trying to stop the ship from crashing.

In the end, I agree with the verdict from half way through, and give it a So-So rating — that’s just a couple levels shy of Bang Average, and is on a par with the original Speed movie from 1994 — this one being a bit more adventurous in its stunts, but lacking Keanu.

Shelter (2026) – Jason Statham and Bodhi Rae Breathnach

This movie gets off to a weak start, with B movie style sound ringing in our ears and sharp sunlight shining in our eyes from the outset, as Jason Statham shows his slightly bearded, slightly wrinkled old face — he’s no longer The Transporter of 20 years ago.

That being said, it gets very interesting around 10 minutes in, as the neighbours get in trouble and Statham’s character tries to ignore it.

It gets a lot more interesting shortly after galf an hour in, as a swat team pulls up on Statham’s remote island hideout, looking for him, and he’s semi-ready for them too.

By the one hour mark this movie looks set for a Below Average rating, which is quite respectable considering its slow pace, its seeming low budget, its weak cinematography and its mostly soulless supporting cast. Like many of Statham’s movies, he singlehandedly makes this movie what it is, and without him, it would probably be Unwatchable. Having said that, the basic concept and genre is strong — with a much better budget it could have been a really good movie.

The ending was better than expected — usually movies like this dip terribly in the last half hour, but this stayed strong. So in the end, we can settle on the rating of just Below Average.

The Jungle Cruise (2021) – Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt

This Disney movie is like a more mature and slightly better made version of Journey 2 The Mysterious Island (2012) which also starred Dwayne Johnson.

The Jungle Cruise (2021) stars Dwayne Johnson as a ship captain for hire, and Emily Blunt as a woman seeking a legendary miracle cure from a plant hidden deep in the Amazon jungle. The chemistry between Dwayne and Emily is pretty good here. Her tag-along ‘brother’ played by Jack Whitehall is less entertaining but plays his role adequately. Jesse Plemons does a decent job as the main baddie.

By near the half way mark, this movie looks set for a Bang Average rating, which is markedly better than Journey 2, mainly because it’s more mature (while still a bit childish) but also because it’s generally a better production, with better humour. Having said that, it goes sharply downhill around the middle, as there’s a mix of extended boring patches and disgusting patches. It eventually gets a bit better again, but never really re-attains the levels of fun and enthusiasm as it had earlier on. For this reason, plus the fact it’s a bit off-genre, I’m going to rate it just So-So for the action hero movie fan, which is just one level above Journey 2 in the end.