Review of Speed (1994) by Chareef B — 22 Jun 2011

This aged just a bit better than I'd remembered, although admittedly I didn't have the fondest recollections of it. In essence it's a nonstop barrage of action clichés that doesn't try to step out of its own way, choosing instead to embrace the stereotypes and come up with a few new ones along the way.

Keanu Reeves appears at his most wooden while Sandra Bullock is still finding her sea legs as an actress, but the two still manage some level of incalculable chemistry that makes you pull for them through thick and thin.

In many ways, their relationship is a great analogy for the film as a whole - generic and ham-fisted, you've seen it a thousand times before but for some inexplicable reason you're still perched on the edge of your seat for the duration.

Dennis Hopper is noteworthy as the preposterously over-the-top mad bomber; he serves up several great lines that sent me backwards through decades' worth of pop culture nostalgia. Mindless fun that knows its place.