Speed 1994
I remember liking Speed when it came out, though I am not sure if I saw it at the theater originally. I was able to get a good deal on the 4k blu-ray of the movie near this past Black Friday and then, on a podcast I listen to (Office Ladies of all things), they mentioned rewatching and loving the movie, so I put it on. It does its job of keeping you on the edge of your seat for almost the entire length of the movie. Keanu Reeves is great in this ultra macho, but also ultra polite role (calling Sandra Bullock's character "ma'am" for the first half of the movie). It's another neat role for him even though his lines and acting are as stiff as they can be. Bullock is great and then Dennis Hopper is amazing as the bad guy. And it is fun seeing Jeff Daniels as Keanu's partner, very macho, but Keanu is mas, mas macho. So the cast is fun and the movie delivers adrenaline. But, man, major eyerolls on so many of the stunts and action sequences. While there doesn't seem to be much CGI in use, there are a lot of scenes where that bus is definitely not going 50 mph. The huge jump over the gap in the bridge is comical in its ignorance of basic physics (and there was a turnoff available!). There are so many sequences shown that you can let a few things go, but they seem to get more blatant and ridiculous as the movie goes and just becomes a cartoon (explosive-laden bus runs into explosive-laden airplane!). While the main cast is good, the characters on the bus aren't that interesting and poor Alan Ruck is just awful. I will also say that if the movie is really 4k, you can't tell and I never once though it was an impressive picture. And that's watching the actual disc, not just streaming a 4k digital copy. It may well be that it is better than the fairly old blu-ray version that came before. Ultimately, rewatching this movie many years after it was one of the biggest movies of the year, it is a mixed bag. While it is still a fun movie and easy to watch, it could also easily be mocked by Mystery Science Theater for all of the big, dumb stuff going on.
Written: 16 Apr 2024
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, Digital