🎬 Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) – The brakes are gone. The ocean won’t wait.

The only thing faster than the first movie… is a ship that can’t stop

Speed 2: Cruise Control, directed by Jan de Bont, is the sequel to the high-octane hit Speed (1994), but instead of a bus that can’t slow down, this time the action moves to the open seas—specifically, a luxury cruise ship hijacked and turned into a floating missile. With Sandra Bullock reprising her role as Annie and Jason Patric stepping in as the new lead, the film trades freeway tension for oceanic spectacle, hoping lightning strikes twice. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

The plot kicks off with Annie and her new boyfriend, LAPD officer Alex Shaw (Patric), trying to enjoy a relaxing vacation aboard a Caribbean cruise ship. But things quickly spiral when John Geiger (played with slick menace by Willem Dafoe), a disgruntled former computer programmer with a grudge and a lot of leeches, takes control of the ship’s navigation system. With the ship’s crew incapacitated and the vessel headed on a collision course with disaster, it’s up to Alex and Annie to stop the chaos before time—and ocean—runs out.

Compared to the original Speed, which thrived on claustrophobic tension and grounded thrills, Speed 2 feels like a slow-motion version of its predecessor. The cruise ship setting, while visually expansive, removes the sense of urgency that made the first film so iconic. A bus can't stop? That's terrifying. A ship slowly drifting into a harbor? Less so. That said, the final sequence involving the ship crashing into a port city is a spectacle of destruction that’s over-the-top, excessive, and oddly hypnotic.

Sandra Bullock remains effortlessly charming, even if her character spends much of the film as a bystander to the action. Jason Patric gives a solid but unremarkable performance as the heroic officer, lacking the roguish charisma that Keanu Reeves brought to the original. Willem Dafoe, however, is a delightfully unhinged villain, complete with a suitcase full of leeches and a flair for dramatic sabotage.

Despite its flaws, Speed 2 does have a few memorable set pieces, including an intense lifeboat rescue and a mid-film fire-fight in the ship’s bowels. The film tries to balance romance, suspense, and blockbuster action, but never quite finds the right rhythm. Still, it’s a time capsule of late-90s action cinema—big, loud, sun-drenched, and a bit ridiculous.

At the end of the day, Speed 2 may not live up to the legacy of the original, but if you lower your expectations and embrace its cruise-sized absurdity, there’s fun to be found in watching things explode... slowly.