Entertaining film, but not a classic (Speed (DVD))

Member Name: jpegington

Product:	Speed (DVD)
Date:	28/11/06 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Fun, enjoyable

Disadvantages: Nothing special.

KEY CAST:

Keanu Reeves .... Officer Jack Traven
Dennis Hopper .... Howard Payne
Sandra Bullock .... Annie Porter
Joe Morton .... Lieutenant Herb 'Mac' McMahon
Jeff Daniels .... Det. Harold 'Harry' Temple

Direct by – Jan De Bont

Year: 1994

ABOUT THE FILM:

Speed is one of your typical action adventure movies that are fun to watch but nothing too spectacular. The story basically follows one mad bomber who is trying to hold the city to ransom. He blows up one bomb and then places a bomb on another bus which if it goes over 50 MPH will arm itself.

Keanu Reeves plays the cop who is trying to catch the mad bomber and the plot continues in an expected fashion. How do you get the people off the bus before it explodes or runs out of petrol so it has to go slower than 50?

Obviously while this is going on, they are also trying to catch the bomber, who sets up some nice surprises for the cops, meaning that revenge also comes into the story at one point (don’t want to say anymore because I would hate to say to much about the film).

So the aim of film is catch the bomber while protecting the innocent and the film really moves along quite nicely along that theme, ending of course with a Happy ending, boy copy gets girl, criminal gets killed and all live happily ever after.

MY OPINION:

Before I begin, I cannot believe that is really 12 years since Speed came out and just felt that I should do a review on this film. I have broken the review down into separate parts to make it easier to review it.

The Cast:
Firstly I should say that I am not and have never been a great fan of Keanu Reeves, but he does give a reasonable performance in this film. He comes across as the hard but friendly likeable cop who is just trying to get the job done quite well. Sandra Bullock is actually enjoyable in this film, it is a usual role for her, playing a nice girl who is just in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up being quite central to what is going on. Dennis Hopper however is absolutely excellent in Speed, he comes across as the crazy mad killer really well. The scene at the beginning when he just casually kills a security guard really sets the film up well and he plays his part throughout the film really well.

The Story:
Now the only real drawback about the story is that is so predictable. It is obvious what is really going to happen and the fact that they manage to get away with it is just plain silly. Having said that I should stress that this does not take away any enjoyment from the film. As a simple action adventure fun movie, speed is simply great. Don’t watch it expecting a classic awesome film, because that is not what it is, but for a fun, evening entertainment, you could do a lot worse than Speed.

The Music:

I cannot really comment to much on the music as I do not particularly remember it. Only thing I remember is that I (and this is so sad I know) bought the single – Speed (give me what I need) or something like that anyway. That was a cool song and when it first came out obviously impressed me enough to buy it.
In summary this is an enjoyable but not a classic film, that is in my opinion very enjoyable to watch and I recommend it to you should you have a couple of hours that you wish to fill.

Summary: Enjoyable to watch, but not really a classic by any means of the word.