Quartile rating: 4.5/10 · 1 rating
A disgruntled former employee hijacks the Seabourn Legend cruise liner. Set on a fixed course, without any means of communication and at the mercy of the hijacker, it's up to the one cop on vacation, and his soon to be fiancé (hopefully) Annie, to regain control of it before it kills the passengers and causes an environmental disaster. Insurmountable and daunting tasks await them on their perilous journey throughout the ship trying to fend off the hijacker and save the passengers.
Speed 2: Cruise Control is widely regarded as one of the worst sequels ever made. The plot is a lazy retread of the original Speed concept transplanted onto a slow-moving cruise ship, which fundamentally undermines the tension — a vessel barely moving at top speed is an inherently poor substitute for a runaway bus. The script is riddled with contrivances and the villain's scheme (using leeches and magnets to steal diamonds) is absurdly convoluted. Acting is serviceable at best; Sandra Bullock reprises her role gamely but without Keanu Reeves, the chemistry is missing, and Willem Dafoe's villain is cartoonishly underwritten despite his talent. Cinematography is competent but unremarkable — standard late-90s action filmmaking with nothing visually distinctive. Novelty is extremely low: it's a formulaic, by-the-numbers sequel that recycles the same 'vehicle on a collision course' premise with no fresh spin. The ending, featuring a cruise ship crashing into a Caribbean village, is spectacularly expensive but narratively unsatisfying and logistically absurd.