Speed 2: Cruise Control
Speed 2: Cruise Control is a 1997 American action thriller film produced and directed by Jan de Bont, and written by Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson. It is the sequel to Speed (1994) and stars Sandra Bullock (who reprises her role from the original), Jason Patric, and Willem Dafoe. Cruise Control tells the story of Annie (Bullock) and Alex (Patric), a couple who go on vacation to the Caribbean aboard a luxury cruise ship, which is hijacked by a villain named Geiger (Dafoe). As they are trapped aboard the ship, Annie and Alex work with the ship's first officer to try to stop it after they discover it is programmed to crash into an oil tanker.
This article is about the film. For the soundtrack, see Speed 2: Cruise Control (soundtrack).Speed 2: Cruise Control
- Randall McCormick
- Jeff Nathanson
- Jan de Bont
- Randall McCormick
Characters created
by Graham Yost
- Jan de Bont
- Steve Perry
- Michael Peyser
Alan Cody
- June 13, 1997
126 minutes[1]
United States
English
$110–160 million[2]
$164.5 million[3]
De Bont had the idea for the film after he had a recurring nightmare about a cruise ship crashing into an island. Speed star Keanu Reeves was initially supposed to reprise his role as Jack Traven for the sequel, but decided not to commit and was replaced by Patric before filming. The writers had to rework the script to accommodate the addition of a new character. Production took place aboard Seabourn Legend, the ship on which the film is set. The final scene, in which the ship crashes into the island of Saint Martin, cost almost a quarter of the budget, and set records as the largest and most expensive stunt ever filmed. Many interior scenes aboard the ship were shot on soundstages in the Greater Los Angeles Area. The soundtrack featured mostly reggae music. Mark Mancina returned to compose the film score, released as an album 13 years after the film's release.
The film was released by 20th Century Fox on June 13, 1997, to largely negative reviews from critics, who criticized the acting, story, characters, absence of Reeves, and its setting on a slow-moving cruise ship, citing it as less thrilling than that of Speed on a fast-moving bus. Eminent critic Roger Ebert defended the film, calling it a "truly rousing ocean liner adventure story". The film was also a box-office bomb, earning $164 million worldwide against a production budget as high as $160 million. It was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards, winning the Worst Remake or Sequel category.
Plot[edit]
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) cop Alex Shaw is on a motorcycle chasing a vehicle with stolen goods. After he catches the driver of the vehicle, his girlfriend Annie Porter runs into him during her driving test. She finds out that Alex is on the SWAT team after he lied and told her that he was a beach officer. As an apology, Alex surprises her with a Caribbean cruise on Seabourn Legend.
Aboard the ship, deranged passenger John Geiger, a former employee of the cruise company, hacks into the ship's computer system, and the following evening, he sabotages the ship's communication systems and kills Captain Pollard. After remotely blowing up two of the ship's engines, Geiger calls the bridge to tell the first officer, Juliano, that Pollard is dead and he is in charge. Juliano is ordered by Geiger to evacuate the ship. Geiger steals jewelry from the ship's vault. As passengers evacuate, Drew, a young deaf girl, becomes trapped in an elevator, and a group of people also become trapped behind locked fire doors in a hallway filling with smoke. As Annie and Alex attempt to board the last lifeboat, Geiger programs the ship to continue sailing. When the winch lowering the lifeboat jams, Alex jumps into the boat to rescue the passengers, while Annie and Juliano use the ship's gangplank to get them back on deck.
Alex realizes that Geiger is controlling the ship. Armed with shotguns, he goes with Juliano to the cabin. Geiger remotely detonates explosives inside the room. Annie and Dante, the ship's photographer, notice the people trapped behind the fire doors, and use a chainsaw to cut the door open and bail them out on the other side of the hallway. Meanwhile, Alex orders the navigator, Merced, to flood the ship and slow it down by opening the ballast doors. As the ship floods, Alex sees Drew on a monitor after she climbs out of the elevator, and runs to save her. Alex notices Geiger leaving the vault and holds him at gunpoint, but he escapes by closing the fire door in front of him. Using the ship's intercom, Geiger explains that he designed the ship's autopilot system, and is taking revenge against the cruise line after being fired when he contracted copper poisoning. Geiger again escapes from Alex by attaching a grenade to a door.
The crew notices that Geiger has set the ship to crash into an oil tanker off the coast of Saint Martin. Alex decides to stop the ship by diving underneath it and jamming the propeller with a steel cable. Geiger realizes that Alex is trying to stop the ship, so he jams the cable winch while Alex is underwater, causing it to break off the ship and free the cable. Geiger takes Annie hostage and escapes with her on a boat from the ship's stern.
To avoid collision with the oil tanker, Alex and Dante go into the ship's bilge and use the bow thrusters to turn it. The ship screeches down the side of the tanker, but manages to withstand the damage, and heads straight into a marina. It then crashes into a Saint Martin town and eventually stops. Alex jumps off, uses a speed boat, and pursues Geiger to a seaplane. Alex shoots at it from the boat with a speargun and reels himself in through the water. He climbs onto the plane, rescues Annie, and both escape from the plane on one of its floats, which falls onto the ocean. Geiger attempts to fly over the oil tanker, but the plane becomes impaled on the ship's foremast, causing both to explode. The tanker crew however are safe, having launched their lifeboat just in time, leaving Geiger to die in the ensuing explosion. Annie and Alex travel back to shore in the speed boat, and he gives her an engagement ring, asking her if she will "wear this for a while", and she accepts.
Legacy[edit]
Speed 2: Cruise Control has been referenced and parodied in pop culture. A 1998 episode of the Irish sitcom Father Ted titled "Speed 3" involves a bomb planted on a milk float that will explode if the float travels under 4 mph (6.4 km/h). While the plot is a parody of Speed, writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews got the idea for the episode after asking themselves if it was possible to come up with a "worse idea for a sequel than Speed 2."[139] The Simpsons episode "Bye Bye Nerdie" (2001) features a scene on a racing school bus where character Milhouse Van Houten says "It's like Speed 2, only with a bus instead of a boat!"[140] The Family Guy episode "Blind Ambition" (2005) includes a parody of the film's finale where a cruise ship crashes into a pier and through a city before stopping in the middle of an airport.[141]
Potential sequel[edit]
In September 2013, Keanu Reeves stated that he believed that an opportunity for his return in a sequel had passed.[142] By September of the following year however, the actor stated that he would be open to reprising his lead role in a sequel.[143][144] In May 2019, Reeves once again expressed his interest in a potential third movie.[145] By November 2020, Jan de Bont stated that a third film may be developed, while acknowledging that he would want the original cast to return.[146] In December 2021, Reeves expressed his desire to work again with Bullock in the future, and said "never say never" while acknowledging that the realization of a third installment may become a reality.[147] By March 2022, Bullock expressed interest in reprising her role while joking about how much older they both are at this point in time.[148] Later that month she stated that though she was taking a hiatus from acting, she would like to make a third Speed film alongside Reeves. During the interview, she and Daniel Radcliffe brainstormed comedic ideas for the potential project.[149]
In March 2023, Reeves stated that he would reprise his role under the condition that the story justifies the movie with a great script.[150] By April, Graham Yost expressed interest in returning to serve as screenwriter.[151]