Speed
How much damage was done in this movie? I'd watch a video where an insurance adjustor goes through it all and makes an estimate. A cargo plane, two buses, hundreds of cars, an entire section of a subway line, and more. Is that half a billion?
What I did not notice back in 1994 was how much director <PERSON> is able to emphasize height, especially the vertical scales you need to know to comprehend the scenarios. This is harder than it looks, because movie screens are wide and flat. The opening elevator sequence proves his mettle, and he may be better at that than anything else. Which is odd, because this is a movie primarily about a bus moving horizontally.
I do not believe the <PERSON> villain for a second, not the realism of it at least. 862
A disgruntled ex-cop who is mad about his pension goes on an ultra-elaborate bombing scheme in which he gleefully sticks knives in randos' heads and cackles about blowing up a pretty lady?
Well, yes, this is a movie in which you're ready for sex, if you're the <PERSON> and <PERSON> characters, after nearly dying a hundred times. They get the hots for each other through . . . I really don't know what. Do we really need sexual shots of <PERSON>' character reaching between her legs to check the bus panels, while several dozen people are being virtually hijacked by a maniac terrorist? I'm trying but failing to get the connections made here between sex and high-speed bus terrorism.
"Speed" has many great action sequences, it is not complex in almost any other way, and the final 25 minutes seems like an unnecessary coda to the bus fiasco. 292