Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.
Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do?
Instead, it stars Keanu Reeves as Jack Traven, a police officer in pursuit of Mad Bomber Howard Payne, played by Dennis Hopper. As the film opens, Payne has blown the cables off a packed elevator car, and threatens to blow the emergency brakes unless he gets a ransom. Jack foils the scheme, but Payne escapes by faking his own suicide. A few weeks later, Jack's bus driver friend boards his bus to start his daily route, and it promptly explodes. A nearby pay phone starts ringing, Jack answers the phone, and discovers the caller is Payne. The first bombing was just to get Jack's attention; there's another bus with a bomb on it, and the same fate will befall those aboard if he doesn't get his original ransom.
Caught in the middle is Annie Porter (Sandra Bullock in her Star-Making Role) as a passenger/hostage/love interest on the bus. Payne has, as the quote above indicates, placed a bomb on the bus she's riding. If the bus drops below 50... well, you get the idea. So, the the bus must careen wildly through a city notorious for its traffic congestion, unable to slow for anything while the police desperately try to prevent disaster. The other major hitch: Payne is watching through a camera in the bus, so if anyone attempts to leave the bus (under their own power or otherwise)... boom.
One final complication: When Jack gets on the bus and announces he's a cop, there's a street gangster on board who wrongly assumes Jack's after him and draws a gun. The gun goes off, wounding the bus driver. It's then up to Annie to take the wheel and keep the bus above 50 mph. This is why Annie's such a major character and why this was a Star-Making Role for Sandra Bullock.
Noted for being very tense (Keanu Reeves has to first board the bus before he can warn the passengers, which nearly causes the very explosion he's attempting to prevent), and for having a lesser-known sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), which again starred Sandra Bullock (this time in the primary role), and was widely panned for being veryderivative of the original (re: bomb, vehicle, frazzled brunette, attractive love interest, etc.).
Also notable in troperville for being written in part by Joss Whedon, who went uncredited despite a lot of the dialogue being his.
Artistic License Physics: The bus side-swipes a car on the shoulder, which is being loaded onto a tow truck. Somehow this imparts enough momentum to send the car up the back of the truck and launch it through the air.
Likewise, the bus somehow manages to jump an unfinished bridge, despite the fact that there was nothing that could actually launch it. The Making Of documentary pointed this out.
When making the turn the fear of the bus tipping over was uncalled for - this was shown on an episode of Myth Busters, also covering the bus jump.
Ax Crazy: Howard Payne, although he defines himself as "eccentric."
Baby Carriage: Subverted. It gets taken out by the bus, but turns out to be filled with aluminum cans.
Best Served Cold: Payne, who took one look at his tiny severance package and went a little bit nuts.
Big No: Payne after realizing he's been had by the Camera Spoofing. As well as later on the train when he realizes his ransom money is phony when it explodes.
Blown Across the Room: Jack when Payne fakes his own death by explosion. Curiously averted with Harry, who was much closer to the explosion than Jack and yet doesn't move an inch (and BOTH of them are completely unharmed by the blast).
Bond One-Liner: "Yeah? Well, I'm taller." from Jack. "Nothing personal" from Payne.
Bottomless Magazines: Averted. Payne has Traven dead-to-rights and tries to execute him, but he's out of rounds for his shotgun.
Brass Balls: When Jack Traven survives one of the many death defying moments he encounters over the course of the film a passenger cheerfully informs him:
Ortiz: You're not too bright, man, but you got some big, round, hairy cojones.
Camera Spoofing: The police fake out Payne's bus camera by transmitting recorded footage on the same frequency. Traven specifically tells everyone to remain as still as possible to make sure it works. It does, but after everyone's off the bus, Payne catches on because one passenger put down her purse in the middle of the video.
Chekhov's Gun: The detonator with the "dead man's handle".
Harry telling Jack that after another thirty years of police work, he'll get a tiny pension and a cheap gold watch.
The watch on the bus bomb.
When Jack is on top of the subway train, he has to noisily move from an oncoming tunnel light. However, this results in Payne finding out his whereabouts. A few minutes later, after his money is tainted by the paint bomb, Payne ascends to the top of the train and fights Jack . During the fight, Jack notices another tunnel light heading their way, so he pushes up Payne's head, resulting in the light beheading him.
Payne referring to Annie as "the wildcat behind the wheel".
The monitors in Payne's hideout that are showing football games, revealing he's a football fanatic. This is why he calls Annie a "wildcat" because of the sports logo on her jacket.
Convection, Schmonvection: Averted - when the first bus explodes Jack doesn't come closer than ten feet of it and still has to hold his arm up in front of his face.
Didn't Think This Through: Harry when he tells Jack to shoot him while Payne is using him as a Human Shield. While it does cause Payne to drop him, Harry isn't too happy about being shot and lets Jack know it.
Drives Like Crazy: Mostly averted. All the difficulties come from maintaining speed. However, Annie loses her license for speeding before the first movie starts (which is why she's taking the bus in the first place).
Elevator Failure: Payne blows the cables on a packed elevator, then wants $3 million or he blows the emergency brakes and kills the passengers.
Evil Is Hammy: In a role that's practically written for Dennis Hopper.
Explosive Leash: First used on Harry, then on Annie at the end of the film.
Face Heel Turn: Payne sort of falls into this. Even though he's never shown on the good side, it's revealed that he was a bomb squad cop who got discharged from the force after he was wounded in an explosion and is making his bomb threats and demanding the ransoms because he feels, as he tells Jack, that he spent his life earning the money.
Failsafe Failure: Happens twice, and they're both Payne's fault.
{{quote|Payne: I got a watch too, Jack. A watch, and a pink slip, and a "Sorry about your hand".
Fanservice Extra: When the SWAT team are rescuing people from an office building elevator that's about to drop, one of the passengers is a brunette in a brown business suit. As they help her down, her skirt rides up revealing a white thong. Everybody in the elevator is credited at the end of the cast credits as [="Elevator Passengers="], so there's no easy way to tell which actress this is.
Fire-Forged Friends: Stephens and Gigantor don't like each other very much throughout most of the crisis, but by the time they finally get off the bus, they're both locked in a bro-hug.
Flashed Badge Hijack: It doesn't work at first, then Jack draws his gun and gets the car.
I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: When Jack shoots out the lock in the subway station, without knowing what is behind what he's shooting at (a crowd of people screaming and running), in violation of one of the key rules of gun safety. Granted, he's in a bit of a hurry, but even so.
I Shall Return: At the airport, Jack manages to convince Payne to let him off the bus to arrange the ransom. The other passengers are obviously unenthusiastic at being left behind, but Jack answers "Don't worry, I won't go far." A few minutes later, the hostages look in amazement to see Jack in front of them being towed on a service cart to attempt to disarm the bomb while the bus is in motion.
Ironic Echo: The "pop quiz" line from Harry is repeated twice by Payne to Jack. Jack later attempts to use it on Payne as one, but it backfires badly when
News Monopoly: Every single news outlet is covering the story of the speeding bus, to the point that they're interfering with public safety. This leads to the decision to route the bus to an airport.
No OSHA Compliance: The subway train has neither Dead-Man Switch nor overspeed failsafe. And what's with the unfinished freeway with unblocked access ramps?
Nothing Personal: Said by Payne as he jams a knife into an innocent security guard that blunders into his elevator-bomb plot.
Not So Different: Invoked by Jack during his Mexican Standoff with the criminal on the bus too get him to calm down and put his gun away.
Also, invoked by Payne when he tells Jack that he did earn the money he wants for ransom
Panty Shot: When one of the female hostages is being helped off the elevator by the SWAT team her skirt rides up and we get a shot of her butt wearing white panties.
Police Are Useless: Subverted, in that the police are on top of the situation immediately with an escort, mapping a survivable route from a following police helicopter and blocking off side streets to give the boobytrapped bus a clear path. It helps that a fellow off-duty cop is on board.
Product Placement: The bus is covered with ads for Santa Monica Bank, which aren't out of place, as that bank heavily advertises on the Big Blue Bus system. The one on the rear is somewhat meaningful: "Money isn't everything. (Yeah, right)".
Red Shirt: The movie also reinforces the "security guards aren't people" cliché. Remember that poor guard Payne stabbed in the ear at the beginning of the movie? If so then it's definitely just you, because after saving the day the cops celebrate their victory and reassure themselves that "nobody died", and news reports boast that only the bomber was killed in the incident. Ouch!
Note also that the guy presenting the medals to the SWAT team asserts that the only life taken by Payne's bomb was his own - the security guard at the beginning wasn't killed by a bomb.
Red Right Hand: Payne's malformed hand, caused by holding onto an explosive charge for a wee bit too long.
Shoot the Hostage: The Trope Namer. Jack (Keanu Reeves) does exactly that near the beginning of the movie when his partner Harry (Jeff Daniels) is held captive by Payne (Dennis Hopper).
He also doesn't seem to consider the possibility that maybe the police aren't going to just give him millions of dollars without rigging a trap to try and trace it / him.
Technology Marches On: Jack having to take the cell phone of the driver of the car he hijacks before getting on the bus was believable in 1994. A little odd today, since Jack would most likely have his own, as would probably every passenger on the bus.
Token Romance: Triple subverted, and arguably deconstructed, over the course of the two films. Annie initially insists that they are a bad idea, as "relationships based on intense circumstances never work out". At the end of the film, Jack throws this back in her face as a Meaningful Echo, to which she replies "I guess we'll have to base it on sex then", and they decide to pursue the relationship anyway. But the start of the second film reveals that the relationship didn't work out, just as Annie initially predicted.
Tom Hanks Syndrome: While Keanu Reeves was already quite well-known as Ted, this showed he could manage dramatic roles.
Too Dumb to Live: It is hard to comprehend the kind of panic and fear a bystander must feel in that situation,
Wire Dilemma: Subverted in that Jack finds out he is unable to cut any wire because of the complex nature of the bomb.
You're Insane!: Payne has a comeback for this one: Poor people are insane - he's eccentric.
Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Averted. Payne has Jack at his mercy in the elevator and does try to just shoot him, but he's out of ammo.
Played straight in the third act leading to the train sequence.
Speed 2: Cruise Control contains examples of:
The Bad Guy Wins: Granted, it's something of a Pyrrhic Victory, but Annie and Alex are so busy being lovey-dovey at the end of the second film that they fail to realise that
Flashed Badge Hijack: In the second movie it happens again, to the same guy, in the middle of the Caribbean. The owner lampshades the sheer absurdity of this.
Hero Insurance: No one seems too concerned about an oil tanker exploding in the Caribbean.
Linked-List Clue Methodology: Geiger hiding his detonators in a set of golf clubs. Alex gets suspicious when he notices Geiger isn't paying attention to a pro golf tournament on TV.
Mythology Gag: Annie getting cut off in traffic by a replica bus from the first film.
Not Now, Kiddo: "Mommy, there's a big boat!" "There are a lot of big boats here, honey."
Stuff Blowing Up: Just like in the first movie, a hijacked vehicle crashes into a much larger sitting vehicle, resulting in a much bigger explosion. In this case, Geiger's plane flying into an oil tanker.
Televisually-Transmitted Disease: Geiger, a computer programmer, claims that he contacted copper poisoning from his prolonged time around computers. Given that he "treats" this condition by sticking leeches on his chest, it's obvious that he's as granola as California - a nut, a fruit, and a flake.
You Fail Physics Forever: The cruise liner slows down faster when it's just running down yachts than it is when it crashes into the island.