Quick Reviews!!

Rating: 9/10 (16 December 2004)

One of the last great action movies, fast moving, exciting, action packed, with good acting, Speed is still better than all the Summer blockbusters they try to feed us now. No-one is trying to destroy the world, we just have an old fashioned psycho who wants revenge. Dennis Hopper plays an ex bomb disposal guy who was chucked out of the force, and believes he deserves due payment. When his plan is stopped by Reeves, a reckless cop, and Bridges, his calm partner, Hopper decides to put Reeves through a series of tests. He puts a bomb on a bus, which will be armed if it goes above a certain speed, and then detonated if it goes below 50. Reeves begins a race to find the bus, stop the bomb, save the innocents and find the bad guy. On the bus he meets Sandra Bullock, Annie, who has to take over driving the bus when the driver is shot. They form a partnership and try to find the bad guy.
It is clearly the stunts that are the selling point for the film, and they are superb. The action is directed well, and the good guys never seem to get a break, with every situation scraped through narrowly. Reeves is good, Bullock sparkles in her first big role, and Hopper does the mad thing brilliantly. The rest of the cast all perform well also. many memorable moments, and lots of fun, with a plot full of humour and tension.