'Speed 2' bigger but not better than first one<\/p>\n
By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Speed 2, Jan de Bont's sequel to the surprise
\nsummer hit of 1994, only confirms that sequels are not
\nnecessarily equals.<\/p>\n
The premise follows a patented franchise formula: bigger but
\nnot necessarily better. What was a well-crafted peril-on-a-bus
\nthriller is now a sloppy peril-on-a-luxury-cruise-ship giant
\nbore. Annie Porter (Sandra Bullock) is upset to find out that her
\nnew boyfriend Alex Shaw (Jason Patric, Sleepers) is a daredevil
\nLos Angeles Police Department SWAT team member. She reminds him
\nthat the reason she split up with Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves in
\nSpeed) is that he was too \"extreme\".<\/p>\n
To placate her, Alex produces two tickets for a luxury cruise
\nto the Caribbean. The scheme works. The Seabourn Legend is not
\nonly magnificent, it also has John Geiger (Willem Dafoe), a
\ndisgruntled former employee itching to ram it into an oil tanker
\nso that Bullock can scream some more, pick up her US$12.5 million
\npaycheck, and hopefully sign the third Speed contract. Soon
\nthings start exploding, the engine is completely shut down, and
\nthe countdown begins.<\/p>\n
It would have been tolerable had Speed 2 been something more
\nin the order of Speed's cat-and-mouse dynamics, but it isn't.
\nSure, the fundamentals are the same: good guy kills bad guy and
\nsaves the day. Yet, what made the relationship between Jack
\nTraven and Howard Payne (played by Dennis Hopper) in Speed so
\ncompelling was its intensely personal dimension. It was about
\ntheir characters loathing each other to such an extent that the
\nwhole movie revolved around this hatred.<\/p>\n
In Speed 2, Alex and Geiger hardly even interact. The acting
\nfares no better. Sandra Bullock shows that even everybody's
\nfavorite bus driver cannot reprise what had been a fortuitously
\nperfect casting. Sure, she is now the star, and a hot enough
\nstar to have a man written into the supporting role she performed
\nto such accolades in Speed.<\/p>\n
Yet, in Speed 2, she serves hardly any function other than
\nanswering our curiosity about her driver's license prospects (not
\ngood) and ushering in a new hero boyfriend (interminably bland).
\nIf her first Annie was plucky, her second is Bullock lite - full
\nof her own candy-floss trappings, but screamingly hollow at the
\ncore.<\/p>\n
Somewhere out there, Keanu Reeves -- who turned down Patric's
\nrole in favor of touring with his band -- must be laughing.<\/p>\n
Although frequently mocked as a wooden thespian, his blend of
\nlean physical beauty, matter-of-fact boyishness and total
\ninvolvement was entirely suited to the clean, competent and
\nstreamlined project that was Speed. Meanwhile, his successor is
\nabout as convincing as Chris O'Donnell playing Ernest Hemingway
\nwhen we see him tearing down a winding road on his 916 Ducati
\nmotorcycle.<\/p>\n
Although supposedly cut from the same cloth as Jack Traven,
\nAlex Shaw hardly inspires confidence. For the most part, he runs
\naround uncertain what to do, and when he finally does something,
\nwe rarely see how he does it. Worse, he puts people's lives on
\nthe line: once with the lifeboats (two people die), another
\ninvolving a lovesick girl (she nearly dies of flooding, thanks to
\nhim), and in the mother-of-all-catastrophes (when he just looks
\non, mouth agape, as the Seabourn Legend nosedives straight into
\nthe heart of the French port town of St. Martin.)<\/p>\n
Yet if Speed 2 crashes at the box office, it would not just be
\ndue to Patric. Director Jan de Bont's much-publicized obsession
\nwith surpassing his own standards (Twister, cinematography for
\nDie Hard and Flatliners) has resulted in a sloppy overdrive.<\/p>\n
The pacing is slack, the editing choppy, the action unfocused.
\nSpatial relationships are hardly existent. One control room scene
\nhas the camera pan through various faces like a giddy first
\nouting with the video-cam.<\/p>\n
Each explosion sends the camera shaking and the light keeps on
\nflickering, tossing all hopes of clear visibility into the ocean
\ndown yonder. Whither de Bont, who is first and foremostly a
\ncinematographer?<\/p>\n
Graham Yost's script is peppered with dialog that hardly
\nstrays from limp one-liners such as \"Do something!\", \"We're
\ncrashing!\" and the all-encompassing \"Oh s---t!\" Scenes of
\nmayhem are poorly choreographed, with no regard for detail or
\nprocess. Human lives are dispensed with little, if any,
\naccompanying conscience. Annie further devalues them with
\nconstant whining over her vacation-gone-awry.<\/p>\n
Not to mention the level of absurdity. Would a ship keep
\nplying forward with all its engines shut down? Is that final
\ncrash into the port town necessary? Having failed to create
\nsuspense and an immediate sense of danger, the movie resorts to
\nmindless destruction. But, with $125 million to blow, something
\nsimply had to give.<\/p>\n
The supporting cast boasts not one character worth
\nremembering. Temuera Morrison makes a more convincing mutant in
\nThe Island of Dr. Moreau than the ocean-liner's second-in-
\ncommand. He mostly spends his screen time staring vacantly at the
\ncommotion around him. Brian McCardie, who plays the token
\nScotsman, looks sufficiently distressed but is a long shot from
\nmemorable.<\/p>\n
Lastly, what of Willem Dafoe (Clear and Present Danger, The
\nEnglish Patient), a character actor to boot? The role of the
\npsychotic but largely predictable Geiger is utterly beneath him
\nas he is accustomed to more demanding, complex roles. Yet he
\noversupplies Geiger with unimpressive quirks and none of the
\npanache that we expect from an actor of his caliber.<\/p>\n
Just like Annie's relationship with Alex, there's no heart,
\nintensity, or drama in the entire movie. Like Bullock and Patric,
\nwho resolutely insist on playing themselves, this is a movie so
\nisolated in its self-importance that it has forgone all logic,
\nstyle and conviction.<\/p>",
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