Fave-oween #23: Speed

    I've noticed that Sandra Bullock's two best, most critically acclaimed, movies (This and Gravity) are action films that are mostly set in settings that don't create a lot of solid situations for an action film...just an interesting observation I had.
#23: Speed
    Because just like when I walked into Gravity thinking "How can they sustain my interest for 90 minutes with a movie that's entirely Sandra Bullock floating through space?", I began Speed thinking "How can they sustain my interest for 2 hours with a movie that's entirely Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock driving a bus with a bomb on it? And both times I came out of the movie thinking "Oh, that's how you do it!"
    Speed is a movie of simple ideals; there's a good guy in the form of a smart, bitter LAPD officer, his hot, lively assistant to help him along the way, and a bad guy in the form of a psychopathic, monologue reciting bomber. There are no questions of morality, no deeper thoughts added in, or even a sob story to give to one of our characters, cause there doesn't need to be. The chemistry between or main duo, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, is so bonded and any chance they get to talk to each other, wether they're being sarcastic or they're strategizing, sounds so real and panicked, that that's enough to make them come off as real people. When an action film has a pace this highly taut and energetic and it's able to keep that adrenaline going for a whole 2 hours, why add in sob stories and thought-provoking moments like that to make it awkward and unsteady?
    A large part of the reason this film didn't get passed by the wayside of average action thrillers with black-and-white morals is because of what an original idea the film is centered around, that is being set almost entirely on a bus. How consistent Speed stays with that idea, and how it's constantly able to deliver heart pumping scenes without having to convolute a way out of the specific, limited setting. Well, it doesn't convolute until the climax, but the film gets a free pass since it needed to change location for the sake of keeping the audience's interest, and it stayed on that bus for a damn long time.
    Okay, there are most likely plot holes in this movie, but the setup for why the bus needs to stay over 50 mph and no one can just jump off is pretty solid. It's at least enough to not make the audience doubt what's going on, and the tense, yet exuberant atmosphere distracts enough anyways. The idea of being stuck on a rapid bus has the potential between being a boring, repetitive mess, or perfect setup for an action movie if the right moves are done throughout, and that's why I appreciate this film so much. It's action that went outside the norm, that dared to try something really hard to work with, and the filmmakers succeeded in creating suspenseful situation after suspenseful situation with just a bus, like having to jump over a section of empty road, or when Jack (Reeves) goes under the bus to dismantle the bomb.
    Yeah, it's an action film, and in the end, we all know the protagonists are going to win and the antagonist is going to lose. (I really shouldn't have to call that a spoiler) Yet, the specific moments that are supposed to be thrilling are so, surprisingly, well thought out and well executed. There are a lot of action movies that can be skipped easily and nothing will be missed, except maybe a new one-liner. And while, on the surface, Speed looks like just another whatever in a mind numbingly unoriginal genre, (seriously, just look at that poster and tell me there's anything remarkable about it) there's actually some creative, original writing and an energetic feel to it.

Tomorrow: (Insert M. Night Shyamalan joke here) OR (Insert joke about the one quote from this movie that everybody remembers here) OR (Insert joke about the famous twist ending here)