As long as that bus was driving, I was on the edge of my seat.

Rating: 6/10 (20 April 2005)

I guess hundreds, if not thousands, of action movies have been made in the history of cinema and a lot of them isn't exactly worth much. Most of them always look exactly the same, only on a different location. You get a lot of shooting and explosions, some Karate or Kung-Fu moves..., we all know the recipe. However, sometimes you'll find a more original one and "Speed" certainly is one of them.
Howard Payne tries to extort money from the city of LA by threatening to kill some people, who are being trapped in an elevator, with explosives. When Jack Traven and Harry Temple save all those people, they are being celebrated as heroes. But Payne will not rest until he gets his money and he sets a new challenge for Traven: a bomb on a city bus which will arm itself when the bus reaches 50 mph and which will explode if the bus drops below that speed or if any of the passengers try to escape. Traven tries to stop the buss in time, but it is already too late, now all he can do is to keep it going...
The acting in this movie is more than average. I liked Sandra Bullock as the passenger / bus driver and thought that Dennis Hopper did a very good job playing the bad guy. I even enjoyed Keanu Reeves' performance. But as I already said in my title, as long as that bus was driving I was sitting on the edge of my seat. The only problem is that there was a part before and after that sequence and those parts didn't really do it for me. Those parts looked a bit too much like they were coming from the average, not so good action movie, instead of being from a more original one. That's why I give this movie a 6.5/10.