The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down (spoilers throughout)

Rating: Null/10 (8 July 2006)

Speed is another one of those films where the idea is better than the execution. A bus that can't go below 50mph without blowing up? Cool! Just imagine the mayhem that will ensue. But unfortunately this excitement overlooks the fact that only the dregs of society ride the bus.
The main aim of a film like this, besides creating exciting action, must be to create likable characters; people we don't want to see blown to smithereens. But really, would you feel any worse if any of the passengers in Speed died? I wouldn't. In fact, I actually like the scene where one of them gets blown up  a jittery old lady gets itchy feet and then eats highway sandwich as the dastardly Dennis Hopper sends her on a one-way trip to Splatsville. But unfortunately this is just a one off. All the rest survivedamn it.
But the killing of the nervous old lady is rendered even more amusing than it already is through the attempts to inject emotion. Reeves and Bullock desperately try and make us give a damn. But with the screen filled with such a dearth of acting talent, one can only grin. And besides, Hopper's reaction is much more in line with my own. "Interactive TV, Jack. Wave of the future." I'm on his side.
However, the old lady is far from the film's most annoying character. That dubious honour would go to Ortiz. He's obviously meant to be the lovable, salt of the Earth type, a working class hero adrift in a sea of cowardly women and retarded men (stand up Alan Ruck). But Carlos Carrasco's line delivery is even worse than Reeves'. Example: when he hears that the bus has to make a 50-foot jump, he's meant to communicate surprise. But rather than adopt a look of disbelief or mutter some expletives, he opens his eyes as wide as they can possibly go (so wide they look like they're about to pop out Loony Tunes-style) and mutters an exaggerated, "Geez". It's quite possibly the worst line delivery in cinema.
And then you have Bullock. She's a poor enough actress, but she plays the sort of person who tells people to stand behind the yellow linewhen she's not a real bus driverand when there's a bomb on board. I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd asked to see everyone's tickets. But although I could defend her hard-line bus protocol stance (even in crisis situations, people need rules; otherwise chaos ensues), I can't defend her reaction to running a pram over. She takes her hands off the wheel and starts screaming. Bloody women. You're there driving a bus that needs to maintain an acceptable velocity and you endanger everyone's lives because a fat, little baby might have got squashed. Sorry, you're just going to have to pull your knickers up and live with it.
And of course, Keanu brings things down even further. Every time he opens his mouth you're waiting for the next mangled line delivery. And sure enough he chokes on his lines with great regularity. Plus it's almost impossible to buy him as a cop. It's not because he comes across as mentally defective  there are plenty of dumb cops  it's more that at any moment I expect him to suddenly run off and go surfing.
But actually, thinking about it, Reeves' worst acting is non-verbal. In the opening scenes with the lift, he has to spend a lot of time communicating thought. But the only way he knows how to do it is to chew gum and make lots of jerky bird-like head movements. That's Acting!
But one of the things I like about the film  and to be fair, I enjoy the film quite a bit, in the way that one enjoys dumb movies  is the way that Hopper's character is always mocking Reeves' intelligence. He's forever telling him he's dumb ("Do not attempt to grow a brain," he says at one point). But in Reeves' defence, even Hopper could be labelled stupid. I mean, why does he only install a camera in the bus and not a microphone, too? Of course, the explanation is banal  if he could hear what was going on, it would be impossible for Reeve's to fool him and get everyone off the vehicle, and therefore you wouldn't have a movie  but still, Reeves probably wasn't the only one who rode to school on the short bus.
But Hopper, more than the bomb on the bus, is what makes the film. He's just fun to watch. Sure he doesn't stretch himself and sure he repeats past performances (Blue Velvet and Apocalypse Now being the main two), but at least he grasps the absurdity of the film and doesn't take it too seriously. For example, on the train at the end, when his money gets marked, he shouts, "I'm going to get you, Jack" and then runs off screaming "Aaaaaaahhhh!" It's stupid and devoid of wit, but it never fails to bring a smile to my face. And I also love the bit when Hopper is watching television and he repeats the newscaster's line: "The whim of a madman!" Very amusing.
Almost as funny is a bit near the end. And it's actually, to my surprise, a Reeves moment (and the laugh is actually intentional). I'm talking about his one liner after Hopper gets decapitated. "Where's Payne?" "He lost his head." Aside from Reeves and Jeff Daniels sitting side by side in an orgasmic stupor after the elevator drop at the beginning, it's one of the few forays into 80s action (which I applaud it for). But unfortunately, after this, you have a horribly mushy ending. And then to accompany the cold water that's been poured in your pants you have to listen to Billy Idol sing all the words he could think of that rhyme with 'speed'. The horror. The horror.