My Review of "Speed"

Speed came out in 1994 and at the time of its release I thought it was a dumb idea. It was pretty popular back in those times. I guess I didn't see the appeal so I never watched it. My small mind couldn't comprehend how this movie could be an exciting action film. Fast forward to 2021 I finally caved and watched the movie. After watching it, I have to admit I'm kicking myself for not watching it earlier.

The movie starts off with an act of terror in a business high rise. A bomber has taken an elevator full of people as hostage for 3 million dollars. I have to remember sometimes that this movie was back in the 90's so a lot has changed since then. One of the big things is the value of money. This almost sounded like that old Austin Powers jokes of Dr. Evil terrorizing the earth for 1 million dollars.

So our hero Jack and his partner Harry are assigned to diffuse the bomb. Jack has a hunch that the bomber is going to blow up the emergency brakes on the elevator anyways. They devise a plan to have a safeguard to keep the hostages safe in case something happens. This obviously puts a huge damper to the bomber's plans. Eventually the two heroes get everyone out safe and sound with the bomber furious at our heroes.

Next thing you know our heroes are rewarded with badges of bravery on national television which further infuriating the bomber. That's when the bomber decides to put Jack to another test by putting a bomb on a local bus.

When the bus passes 50 miles per hour the bomb will initiate. From then on the bus cannot go any slower than 50 mph or the bomb will detonate. He adds further stipulation that he will detonate the bomb if at any point the riders try to get off the bus.

Of course Jack being the hero of this story decides to thwart this bombers plans yet again. That's when the movie really starts. It's good that it has a great background behind the motives of each of the characters. I thought this movie was pretty well written as a lot of the characters are very consistent and everything kind of makes sense.

There are a few consistencies in the movie that didn't really jive with me. For example there are a few areas of the bus that take quite a bit of damage yet some of the scenes look like the bus is fully intact and nothing happened to it. It's quite odd because you'd think you'd hear some wind noise and other problems with respect to the damage it took but everything seems to be fine.

There's is also this scene where Jack negotiates the freeing of one of the hostages and I kind of didn't buy the leniency of the bomber at that moment. It started up a pretty dumb scene that I don't think was totally necessary. I understood why they did it but the whole manner they did it kind of threw me off.

I did however liked some of the clever ways that jack was able to thwart the bomber. These clever problem solving scenes were pretty well thought out and I have to give the writers props for thinking of these ideas.

The movie keeps the action going from start to finish. I almost forgot about how much fun 90's action movies were. You'd think a bus just driving for 50 mph would get boring but it didn't get boring. They just kept pushing more obstacles for Jack to figure a way out of. It is non stop fun.

Overall, I had a really good time watching this movie. I had a grin on my face throughout the movie's runtime. It's too bad I watched this much later than I should have. This proves to me that I should broaden my horizons with movies. If people love the movie there has to be a reason. Today I found that reason. I have to give this movie an 8 out of 10. It's nonstop action and fun for the whole family.