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88Movies like this embrace goofiness with an almost sensual pleasure.
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60Speed 2 is a well-above-average armrest-gripper with little in it to upset the children excepting, perhaps, Dafoe's lengthy white teeth, and the fact that UB40 provide onboard cabaret.
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50Nathanson's script has a disheartening let's get on with it air, and the film feels like marathon training...
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50It's all idiotic but energetic, directed by Jan De Bont in his usual techno-action style.
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50The last half-hour is a decent enough ride, with Dafoe controlling the ship by Powerbook and product placement, while Bullock and Patric demonstrate the triumph of American gumption over high tech, the better to save all hands on deck.
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50Despite huge resources at Mr. De Bont's disposal and the fact that both he and Ms. Bullock have achieved stellar status since ''Speed'' screeched onto movie screens, the sequel is still a B-movie at heart.
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50Lacking the manipulative structure of "Speed," which shrewdly interspersed rousing set pieces throughout the story, Speed 2 is vastly uneven, trying in its second hour to recoup energy and compensate the audience for all the exposition of the initial reels.
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40Not nearly as clever at taxing the audience's knuckles as its forerunner, Speed 2 still manages to stay above board long enough to merit a look-see, if only to relish the once-in-a-lifetime pleasure of Mr. Dafoe and his pet leeches.
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38The filmmakers, who include the hitherto ace action director Jan De Bont ("Speed", "Twister"), have neither hearts nor minds in gear. [13Jun1997 Pg.04.D]
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38Speed 2 can be numbered among the worst second chapters ever made.
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33Yet Speed 2 is as slow-moving as a garbage scow. Those blinking lights might as well be emanating from a vital-signs monitor. The story is dead in the water.
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30Though it displays enough perils to put a dent in future cruise ship sales, the film has a makeshift, slapdash quality that is the opposite of its predecessor.
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30The screenwriters, Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson, and the director, Jan de Bont, have no interest in providing their actors with stuff to act.
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25This is my idea of a nightmare.
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25And De Bont's effects are wildly over the top, devoid of the stylish cuts and intriguing angles that enriched the original. In fact, there's so little panache in his destructive action that it begins to seem like a weird act of self-destruction.
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10First, the good news: Unlike most action film sequels, Speed 2: Cruise Control is not a mere retread of the original. Now the bad news: Better it had been.
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10The 1994 "Speed," which starred Bullock and Keanu Reeves, was hardly "King Lear" on a bus, but it was an entertaining ride. But this movie is nothing but pain to sit through.
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10"Speed" made millions on mindless, empty thrills; this laborious sequel is just as mindless and empty but lacks the thrills.
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0This may be hard to believe, but there's not a single moment of drama or tension in any of the action sequences. And the film is made up almost entirely of action.
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0Speed 2 is such an inept piece of direction that it's anybody's guess whether De Bont understands how to convey where two characters are in spatial relation to each other or in relation to the action.
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But like De Bont's awful "Twister", Speed 2: Cruise Control somehow manages to fail in every way.
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0The kinetics aren't that good, the twaddle is off the charts and the characters seem written by monkeys on amphetamines with crayons.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 0 out of 8
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Mixed: 3 out of 8
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Negative: 5 out of 8
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5Just 3 words: Mobile phones existed?
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