Great action sequences but this movie is incredibly stupid

Rating: 5/10 (20 December 2009)

LAPD officer Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) and his buddy officer Harry Temple (Jeff Daniels) foil the plans of a mad bomber (Dennis Hopper) to hold a bunch of people hostage for millions of dollars. In retaliation he sets up a bus that if it goes under 50 MPH it will blow up and kill all the people on board. Naturally Jack gets on the bus and with the help of spunky Annie Parker (Sandra Bullock) tries to deal with the situation.
OK--this movie is REALLY stupid. It has an incredibly dumb plot full of implausible situations and jaw-dropping coincidences. Add to that stupid dialogue, one-dimensional characters, a totally unbelievable (and unnecessary) romance between Bullock and Reeves and truly terrible "comic" relief and you got one horrendous movie. However this film does have absolutely astounding action sequences. They're loud, realistic and shot so you're right there with them. Despite the stupid plot these sequences kept me watching. Reeves gives another wooden performance but he looks great with a buzz cut and all pumped up. This is the film that made Bullock a star and rightfully so. She's just great in a severely underwritten part. Hopper surprisingly is pretty bad in his role. He usually plays these parts to perfection but he seems going on auto pilot here. Daniels barely figures in this. So the action is astounding but the really dumb plot kept working against it. I can only give it a 5.