Speed 2: Cruise Control

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Jason Patric, Willem Dafoe
Directed by: Jan de Bont
Released: 20th Century Fox, 1997

The title is an example of an office full of marketing execs hard at work: Somebody threw them a downright awful script that featured a madman bomber aboard (of all things) a cruise ship, and the only way to sell it was to label it a sequel to 1994's highly entertaining bomb-on-bus thriller. By now, though, the thin logic that can convince a packed house that a public bus really can jump a 50-foot gap of inclined highway has been completely obliterated, and it appears that Sandra Bullock was the only one from the original Speed without a career to attend to. This time she's paired up with stoic beau Jason Patric (who's even worse than Keanu Reeves) versus Willem Dafoe (filling in ho-hummedly for Dennis Hopper). Talk about a picture on cruise control -- the lack of excitement in Speed 2 is staggering.