An average movie

Following his massive success with ‘Speed’, Jan de Bont came back with another even bigger blockbuster and even though it didn’t reach the same status as his directing debut, it was still really successful at the box-office (it was in fact the second-highest-grossing film of 1996 only behind ‘Independence Day’). Obviously, the whole plot was rather stupid and they even added an underwhelming romance between Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton but, honestly, nobody who went to see this movie really cared about the story or the characters involved. Indeed, it was and still is about the special effects and even if I usually wouldn’t watch a movie only for this aspect, I have to admit that this movie was very spectacular. In fact, even after almost 20 years, the whole thing still look pretty awesome. Unfortunately for de Bont, a year later, he would come up with the really misguided ‘Speed 2: Cruise Control’ probably considered as one of the worst sequels ever created and his directing career was pretty much killed instantly (indeed, in the last 15 years, he has only directed only one feature). To conclude, even though it is nothing really amazing, I still think it is a decent blockbuster and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10