Speed 2: Cruise Control
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| Speed 2: Cruise Control | |
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 Film poster for Speed 2: Cruise Control |
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| Directed by | Jan de Bont |
| Produced by | Jan de Bont |
| Written by | Randall McCormick Jeff Nathanson |
| Starring | Sandra Bullock Willem Dafoe Temuera Morrison Jason Patric |
| Music by | Mark Mancina |
| Cinematography | Jack N. Green |
| Editing by | Alan Cody |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | June 13, 1997 |
| Running time | 121 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $110 million |
| Preceded by | Speed |
| IMDb profile | |
Speed 2: Cruise Control is a 1997 action movie produced by Twentieth Century Fox and Blue Tulip Productions, directed by Jan de Bont. It stars Sandra Bullock, Willem Dafoe, Temuera Morrison and Jason Patric. It is a sequel to Speed, although Keanu Reeves chose not to star in it.[1] In the movie, Bullock is trapped on the Seabourn Legend, an out-of-control luxury cruise liner. Its navigation computers were reprogrammed by a computer hacker, setting the ship on a collision course with a supertanker.
The film, released in the summer of 1997, was generally regarded as a critical failure, though Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel gave it "Two Thumbs Up," according to the video release cover. Although the movie is considered to be a flop in U.S., as it only made $48 million, it made USD $164,508,066 worldwide, far above the production budget of $110 million.
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[edit] Plot summary
Accident-prone ditz Annie Porter (Bullock) is thrilled when her boyfriend Alex Shaw (Patric) surprises her with two tickets for a cruise to the Bahamas aboard the Seabourn Legend. The trip is a peace offering presented because Annie has just learned that Alex is a police officer who has been lying about his choice of profession. Activities aboard the ship include dancing, disc shooting, and much more. What the couple do not realize is that the disgruntled John Geiger (Dafoe), the person who created the software that operates the ship's computer systems, has plotted a violent takeover of the vessel and a diamond hijacking that puts everyone on board in mortal danger. All goes well until around the second or third night into the cruise when Geiger decides to blow up the ship's port side engines by turning off a set of oil pumps, causing the port side engines to overheat and shudder violently. Meanwhile, Alex and Annie are enjoying a bit of romance as they dance through the night in a nearby ballroom. Suddenly, there is a loud thud, followed by tremors that shake the room, causing ceiling fixtures to swing and tear loose and spotlights to crash to the floor. Annie tells Alex to "keep dancing", but Alex is looking around, trying to see what is going on. Meanwhile, in the engine room, a series of more violent explosions erupts throughout the room, destroying the port side engines and rendering them inoperable. Geiger then calls the bridge and tells the bridge officers to sound the ship's evacuation alarm. They do so, but Geiger gives them only 15 minutes to abandon ship. Meanwhile, Geiger turns off the starboard engines which allows the ship to come to a brief stop. There is a lot of chaos as everyone rushes to the boat deck, trying to access the lifeboats. One family, however, is scared and filled with worry about their deaf daughter, Drew, who is trapped inside an elevator that lost electricity when the port side engines exploded. All too soon, however, just as the last lifeboat is about to be lowered, Geiger's 15 minute time limit runs out; he starts up the starboard engines and the ship begins moving again. As the ship accelerates, the winches holding the lifeboat's bow come loose, causing the bow to drop down, leaving the lifeboat hanging at a sharp slanting angle. The passengers then have to be hauled back onto the ship. A group of officers, led by Alex, then decide to hunt down the terrorist who caused the chaos. As they try to get into the ship's computer networks, they discover that Geiger has changed all of the pass codes. As they track him down, Geiger sets off a series of small bombs that he rigged throughout the ship, causing smoke to pour from air conditioning and heating vents throughout the ship. On the bridge, Alex is trying to figure out how to override the autopilot while Merced tries to tell him that he is not familiar with the equipment. Alex grabs a wrench and smashes a computer screen which causes Merced to go berserk. Alex then sees a set of buttons on the dashboard, but Merced tells him that those buttons open ballast doors. Alex tells him that flooding the ballast tanks would slow the ship down. After a brief argument, Merced finally agrees to flood the ship. Suddenly, Alex sees Drew on the ballast room's video camera screen and shouts to Merced to close the ballast doors. Meanwhile, farther down below, Annie frees a group of trapped passengers by cutting through a jammed door with a chain saw.
Down in the ballast room, Drew, who had just escaped the dark elevator, does not hear the ballast doors open and is surprised at the wall of water that crashes down on her. Luckily, Alex arrives just in time to save her. Drew then tells Alex that she loves him as Alex reunites her with her parents.
Later on, as the morning light shines down on the stricken ship, Alex, Annie, and the bridge crew spot a massive oil tanker, the Eindhoven Lion, directly in their path. They begin thinking of ideas as to stopping the ship. Merced proposes wrapping a steel cable into the starboard propeller, (the Port propeller is not spinning because the port side engines were destroyed the previous night, therefore the ship is running on only one propeller) which Alex agrees to do. Merced tries to speak to the crew of the Eindhoven Lion, but the radio is also down. Meanwhile, Alex and Annie then race below decks and lower a platform over the starboard side of the ship. After a brief talk, Alex leaps overboard with the cable and into the churning waters. Held in place by a yellow safety line, Alex is whipped and thrashed by the intense currents near the prop as he attempts to feed the cable into the prop. But then, the cable gets tangled up with Alex's safety line and both Alex and the cable are relentlessly dragged into the propeller's massive spinning blades. Luckily, Alex is able to untangle himself from the cable before he can get chopped into fish food. On the platform, Annie and Mr Juliano see the cable getting pulled into the water and begin to reel Alex in. But Geiger, having seen the ship's speed falling on his computer, also arrives at the platform and stops the winch feeding the cable into the propeller. But the massive tugging of the cable already wrapped several times around the prop shaft tears the winch from the deck, which injures Juliano's shoulder. Meanwhile, Geiger, having taken Annie hostage, throws Juliano into the water, but Alex grabs hold of him and both are reeled in by the still turning safety line winch.
Near the stern, Geiger gets off the ship by stealing a jet ski powered boat with Annie still held hostage at his side. Meanwhile, Alex and another crewman head forward to the bow thrusters. After some underwater excursions through the flooded ballast room, they find them. Both play tag, each spinning the starboard wheel for 15 seconds each. Although they turn the ship enough to avoid a head on collision, the Seabourn Legend still strikes a glancing blow against the side of the Eindhoven Lion. On the stolen jet skis, Geiger is infuriated by the fact that the Seabourn Legend avoided a head on collision with the oil tanker. Back on board the Seabourn Legend, there are a few moments of joy and celebration, until everyone sees the Saint Martin Harbor, filled with all types of boats, scuba divers, and bustling business, directly ahead of the ship. Alex, Merced, and a few other bridge crewmen try dropping the anchors. The port anchor drops all the way down, drags along the sea bed for a few seconds, and then the anchor winch breaks loose and explodes out of the ship. The starboard anchor falls for a few feet, then its winch jams. The Seabourn Legend plows through group after group of boats, causing massive mayhem in the harbor waters, causing a speedboat to crash through the wall of a fruit store, an explosion on an anchored sailboat, and littering the water with wreckage, only to then run aground in the middle of town, crushing everything in its way, including a brand new condominium building in which a young mother and her son had just purchased, and then stopping within barely an inch of crushing a church. After stopping, however, the starboard anchor drops down and crushes a man's car. Alex then proceeds to go find Annie, who is, ironically, still with Geiger, who is still speeding around Saint Martin. Alex, in the meantime, comes across a docked speedboat owned by Maurice, a man from Los Angeles who recently had a terrible run in with the Los Angeles Police Department when they busted up his Jaguar while chasing the runaway bus with the bomb on it (Speed, 1994 film) After a high speed chase through the waters around Saint Martin, they catch up with Geiger, who is now attempting to fly away in a rented airplane. Alex manages to board the plane and rescue Annie by releasing one of the plane's pontoons and landing hard in the water. In the meantime, Geiger, who must have been an inexperienced pilot, crashes his rented plane into the mast of the supertanker Eindhoven Lion, rupturing his fuel tanks and causing a massive explosion that kills him and destroys the tanker.
Back in the water, Alex and Annie manage to climb into Maurice's speedboat and they escape just in time. On the way back to Saint Martin Harbor where the Seabourn Legend is beached, Maurice picks up a bag of jewels that was dropped from Geiger's plane during an apparent struggle between Annie and Geiger earlier. Alex gives Annie a ring and they embrace.
[edit] Trivia
- Sandra Bullock's character Annie was not given a last name at all in the first Speed movie. Here, it is revealed to be Porter.
- Keanu Reeves decided not to reprise his role as Jack Traven from the first film, ostensibly because he was touring with his band Dogstar. In an interview with Empire magazine, Reeves remarked “How fast does a cruise ship go anyway?”
- Two other characters from Speed reprised their roles in the film: Joe Morton, who was uncredited as Lt. Herb "Mac" McMahon, and Glenn Plummer, who played Maurice (only credited as "Jaguar owner" in the first film). Susan Barnes played the frightened woman on the elevator in Speed, however appeared in this film as the character Constance.
- Matthew McConaughey and Jon Bon Jovi both turned down the role of Alex. Jason Patric used his $8 million fee to help finance Your Friends & Neighbors. Bullock told comedienne Ruby Wax that after the film came out, Patric refused to talk to her.
- Gary Oldman turned down the role of the villain, and instead chose to make Air Force One.
- Bullock originally offered to defer her usual fee and take a gross points deal to keep costs down. Shortly before production, she changed her mind and was paid $11 million.
- Bullock claims that Speed 2 was rushed into production by Fox when their original tentpole summer blockbuster Titanic - which was supposed to open on July 4, 1997 - was postponed and the studio felt they needed a new blockbuster to fill its place. Speed 2 became a flop while Titanic became the biggest success of all time.
- The filmmakers chartered the Seabourn Legend for 6 weeks. Additional scenes were filmed using a false prow built onto the freighter Sturgeon Atlantic.
- A total of three different ships were used in this film, and all other shots of the ship were CGI effects.
- Seabourn Legend — a Seabourn Cruise Line ship, used for most exterior shots of the ship
- "Bridge Ship" — Sturgeon Atlanic freighter built with a false hull and bridge, used for shots of the bridge and the scene where the ship crashes into boats through the marina
- "Rail Ship" — false hull built on an underwater rail that was used for the island crash finale scene
- Sandra Bullock agreed to star in the movie in order to get financial backing for a pet project, Hope Floats (1998), a low-budget drama.
- The oil tanker bears the name Eindhoven Lion, named after Eindhoven, Netherlands, the hometown of director Jan de Bont.
- At the end of the movie when the tanker truck explodes, a cow can be seen flying out with the rest of the debris from the tanker. This is a reference to the flying cow from Twister, also directed by Jan de Bont.
- Maurice's boat name is "Tuneman," the same title on Glenn Plummer's licence plate in the original Speed.
- The original script was intended to be the third film in the Die Hard series.
- Speed 3 is rumored to be in the works. [2]
- In an episode of the HBO series Entourage, character Vincent Chase stars in an Aquaman movie which becomes a commercial and critical hit. However, he is fired from the three picture deal after feuding with executives when they put Aquaman 2 on the extremely fast track. Ari Gold, Chase's agent says that Aquaman 2 will make Speed 2 look like Citizen Kane.
- An episode of Father Ted called "Speed 3" was a thinly-veiled parody of the film. The "speeding" device on this occasion is a milk float.
- The finale boat crash scene in the film cost more than the entire budget of Speed.
- At the end when Annie is taking her driving test again, when she goes to pull out of the carpool, she nearly gets hit by a bus. The bus is number 2526, while the original bus used for Speed was number 2525. She apologises to her driving instructor, saying "That bus was driving way too fast," another reference to Speed.
- Ballast tanks can not be accessed from the passenger areas of a ship. Also, filling/emptying a ballast tank is done with a pump and a pipe, not by opening/closing gigantic doors in the hull. Also, water moving past a ship's hull at 15+ knots would exert tremendous pressure that, in real life, would have likely broken Alex's safety line and caused him to be sucked into the ship's massive propeller.
[edit] Cut Scenes
The network TV version of the film makes the following changes:
- The final scene of the theatrical version of the film where Annie is repeating her drivers test is shown at the very beginning.
- An additional scene was added showing Annie and Alex driving to the port and riding a dinghy to the ship where Annie first meets Geiger.
- The name of the cruise ship was changed to "S.S. Legend."
- An additional scene was added showing crew of the Eindhoven Lion extinguishing the oil tanker after the bow thruster scene.
- An extended boat crash scene was added with more dialogue between the crew on the ship.
- An extended scene was added showing Alex walking through a crashed house and through St. Martin after jumping off the ship.
