Speed Reviews
Top CriticA riotously enjoyable locomotive of action, Speed is driven by a premise of such crystalline purity that its ridiculousness becomes part of the fun.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Believe it or not, the most exciting movie of the year takes place mainly in an elevator, on a city bus and on a train car.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Action directing is a put-up-or-shut-up game, a skill that can't be faked or finessed; even a 10-year-old can tell if you've got it or not. And on the evidence of the invigorating Speed, Jan De Bont has definitely got it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
The deft arabesques of cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak juice up the suspense, and if you're not too put off by the sheer ridiculousness of the story you won't be bored.
The result is clean, delirious, and, yes, speedy -- the best big-vehicle-in-peril movie since Clouzot's The Wages of Fear.
Just when you think Speed is over, it takes you on a new high.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
The story is a starting gun, a reason to roll out the high-tech action movie chase and demolition experts. It's gaudy action shtick, and it's fitting that the last stop is at Hollywood Boulevard.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Talk about simple. But the film's sheer cut-to-the-chase straightfowardness is part of its appeal.
Athough it hits any number of gaping credibility potholes on its careening journey around Los Angeles, Speed delivers the goods as a non-stop actioner that scarcely pauses to take a breath.
Eventually, inevitably, [it] goes too far, too fast, and ends up off the rails.
Cleverer action films (Die Hard II and The Fugitive, for instance) deliver more sardonic intelligence, but this one still gets the job done.
The smart and sassy Bullock is a knockout. She makes us believe the impossible things Annie is doing and, better, makes us care.
We've seen this done before, but seldom so well, or at such a high pitch of energy.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Undeniably, the picture now and again supplies that edge-of-the-seat sensation; yet, by action-adventure standards, Speed is leaden and strangely poky. It never seems to shift into overdrive and let fly.
The most breath-stoppingly thrilling motion picture to open since the original Die Hard.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
The plot becomes so overextended, as Reeves and Hopper wage their endless public transportation battle, even the hardest Die-Harders will consider leaping off way before the final stop.
The film takes off from formula elements, but it manipulates those elements so skillfully, with such a canny mixture of delirium and restraint, that I walked out of the picture with the rare sensation that every gaudy thrill had been earned.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
