Theme: Travel

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.

Speed (1994) – Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock and Dennis Hopper

People probably had more patience due to less choice in the mid 90s, but this movie begins with a lot of drama, not so much action. The first half hour is occupied by one set of mild action scenes wrapped in a load of sitcom or soap opera style nonchalant dialog based drama scenes. Then the movie’s core plot kicks in, as one bus blows up and Keanu Reeves’s character chases after another to stop it blowing up too.

By the 1 hour mark, this movie looks set for a So-So rating, and that may be underselling it based on the standards of 1994, but it may be slightly generous by today’s standards for the smooth action hero movie fan since this is a bit of a tense and simplistic drama fest with very little smooth hero business or intriguing plot at work.

By the end, the verdict hasn’t changed. I rate it So-So. It does well to hold attention, in spite of constant stress & frustration, considering it’s such a simple plot — I put that down to the star power of the core cast members.

Journey 2 The Mysterious Island (2012) – Josh Hutcherson, Dwayne Johnson and Michael Cain

This movie is full of trashy drama and juvenile remarks — it’s all a bit silly, but it has some decent action and curious story features too. I rate it Watchable — that’s a few levels below average, and it couldn’t be much worse, but it’s Watchable nevertheless, if you’re bored and haven’t seen it recently enough to remember how it goes — mainly thanks to its mix of strong and mediocore cast members. If you have seen it before and vaguely remember certain features — and maybe even if you haven’t or can’t — you may still find certain patches are highly skippable for the sake of your own sanity because not every fan of smooth action hero movies wants to sit through scenes of childish screaming, panicking and running past fictional creatures etc, or standing on a cliff and arguing about how to get down it, or even sailing a fantasy submarine vessel without much else going on, for prolonged durations. Indeed, certain patches are barely watchable, and highly skippable, but certain other patches are mildly amusing so it balances out as Watchable.

Cast Members

Josh Hutcherson stars as the rebellious teenager come young man. He’s acting straight here, acting interested in the girl, but he can’t hide his actual bentness to save his life.

Dwayne Johnson plays his stepfather who joins him on his journey as a rare chance to bond with him, and an aged Kristin Davis (from the obscenely named series in the city) plays his mother although we only see her briefly at the start and the end, when everyone’s home. Michael Caine plays the 2-years-missing grandfather who found the island before his grandson — he has the odd bit of banter with Dwayne Johnson, which is mildly amusing.

Then Luis Guzmán plays the pilot for hire, and Vanessa Hudgens plays his daughter — they both come along for the ride when their helicopter crashes in the storm around the island.

That’s pretty much the whole cast there, except the odd cop and homeowner who shows their face in the opening police chase scene.

See also

If you enjoyed this movie, you may also enjoy a slightly more mature movie of a similar theme: The Jungle Cruise (2021) — also starring Dwayne Johnson, but this time as the captain of the ship.

Around The World in 80 Days (2004) – Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan

Not just another early Jackie Chan slapstick movie! This one is genuinely well conceived — compared to the usual cheap early slapsticks at least — with real plot, good ideas and good screenplay. The usual genre, but handsomely upgraded. By 15 minutes in, it already looks like a winner, likely to score Above Average at least. The characters have real depth and backstory here — even Jackie himself. And the humour is well played too — not over done, but genuinely funny occasionally.

Cameos from Richard Branson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sammo Hung and John Cleese were a nice touch.

In the end I’m going to rate this movie Above Average for the action hero genre although if you’re looking for a silly slapstick adventure you can’t do much better!

Steve Coogan makes a good lead character, and Jackie Chan is of course a great sidekick. The lead female, a French artist played by Cécile de France was pretty good at her role too.