Speed
★★★★
How can one deny the entertainment factor of this film? Despite being over 25 years old, the practical achievements of the stunts completely hold up. For some reason, Speed kept coming up in family conversations and we decided that this was a film that our oldest child needed to see.
We almost lost her during the opening credits which is a long tracking shot of an elevator shaft. (This made me realize how different credits are now these days. They have to be just as entertaining as the film itself.) But once it got going, she was on board. Although about thirty minutes in she simply asked, "What's the point of this film?" It dawned on me that this was his first pure, action film experience. There's really not a huge deeper meaning (although you can always dig down deep for a relevant theme to justify the insanity of the plot). As I explained that it was pretty much just to see a good guy beat a bad guy, she shrugged away my explanation. She had been given an opportunity to stay up late and watch a movie, no matter how nonsensical it seemed in her preteen mind.
Once the bus segment of the film is done, Speed goes in a direction that even I was a bit bogged down by. But it is easy to see why Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves became such huge stars and the comical quips are priceless. Even though I could vividly remember what happened, it was just as exciting to see how the action scenes played out again. Speed is a riveting film that never stops (no pun attended) and has to be one of the most rewatchable films to come out of the nineties.
