Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)

User Rating:

3.3/10   

Director:

Jan de Bont

Writers (WGA):

Graham Yost (characters)
Jan de Bont (story) ...

Release Date:

13 June 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

As the stakes get higher, the ride gets even faster

Plot:

A computer hacker breaks into the computer system of the Seabourn Legend cruise liner and sets it speeding on a collision course into a gigantic oil tanker.

Plot Keywords:

Computer | Cruise | Diamond | Police | Cruise Ship

Awards:

1 win & 7 nominations

Cast

Sandra Bullock	...	Annie
Jason Patric	...	Officer Alex Shaw
Willem Dafoe	...	John Geiger
Temuera Morrison	...	Juliano
Brian McCardie	...	Merced
Christine Firkins	...	Drew
Mike Hagerty	...	Harvey (as Michael G. Hagerty)
Colleen Camp	...	Debbie
Lois Chiles	...	Celeste
Francis Guinan	...	Rupert
Tamia	...	Sheri Silver
Jeremy Hotz	...	Ashton
Enrique Murciano	...	Alejandro (as Enrique Murciano Jr.)
Jessica Diz	...	Isabel
Connie Ray	...	Fran Fisher

Also Known As:

Speed: Cruise Control (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for frenetic disaster action and violence.

Runtime:

121 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | American Sign Language | Portuguese

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:12 | South Korea:12 | Malaysia:U | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Canada:PG | Finland:K-12 | France:U | Germany:12 | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:12 | UK:PG | USA:PG-13 (certificate #35324)

Filming Locations:

Bahamas

Company:

Blue Tulip Productions

Trivia:

The bus Annie almost runs into during the credits, is the same Line number (33) the bus in the original movie had.

Goofs:

Factual errors: In the film, the propeller is stopped when the end of a rope is lowered into it. A rope could provide nowhere near enough resistance; a ship's propeller could even cut through a 12-inch steel cable.

Quotes:

Annie Porter: I'll swear, I'm never leaving the house again.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in I Am Legend (2007)

Soundtrack:

Crazy (Phil Chill 12

Everyone to the lifeboats! Women, children and paying moviegoers first.

Let the screenwriters and director go down with the ship I say. As the sun sets slowly in the West, Speed 2: Cruise Control sinks without a trace. The sequel to 1995's surprise drive-a-bus hit has barely caused a ripple at the box office. The threadbare script is mostly to blame. It consists almost entirely of simplistic, exclamation-point dialogue like, "We're gonna crash!" "We're going too fast!" "Do something!" "This isn't happening!" "We gotta get him outta here!" "There's not much time left!" and the ever useful, "Oh, s**t!"

There is, indeed, not much time left for characterization or interpersonal drama. Speed 2 gets off to a winky-dinky start with Sandra Bullock taking yet another disastrous driving test. Bullock's natural charm can go only so far, however, and you keep wanting to throw her a life preserver or a new script. As people drop dead around her, she must continue to whine about the ruination of her vacation. Bullock doesn't get a lot of help from blandish co-star Jason Patric, who plays her cop boyfriend. The nasty, computer-literate villain, who likes to attach blood-sucking leeches to his body, is certainly quirky. Willem Dafoe, who's pretty quirky himself, does what he can with the overriding vagaries of his character's mad-bomber motivation. The action bits are fairly frequent, but seem anemic when compared to what else is available to fans of such. Director Jan De Bont fared much better in 1996 with the flying cows and funnel clouds of Twister. Speed 2 ends up with some highly anticipated destruction as the cruise ship plows into the island of St. Martin. No matter, as I hear the whole thing was computer-generated anyway. This cruise is no carnival, and could have used a cameo by Kathie Lee. Would loved to have seen Dafoe slap her around a bit.