Premiere
"...[De Bont] delivers a wild ride that's worth the fare..." - Recommended 11/01/1994 p.119Rolling Stone
"...A crackling blend of suspense and fun that gives you the rush of a runaway roller coaster..." 06/30/1994 p.79-80 New York Times
"...Delivers wall-to-wall action....[Reeves has] become an actor of real charisma....Hopper finds new ways to convey crazy menace..." 06/10/1994 p.C12 Entertainment Weekly
"...[A] dazzling action thriller....Even Hitchcock, I think, would have approved..." -- Rating: A 06/17/1994 pp.32-4 USA Today
"...It's one of those won't quit action pics that make Hollywood the frequent envy of world cinema..." -- 3 1/2 out of 4 stars 06/10/1994 p.1D Los Angeles Times
"...Invigorating....De Bont and his team have turned in a visually sophisticated piece of mayhem that makes the implausible plausible and keeps the thrills coming..." 06/10/1994 p.F1 Chicago Sun-Times
"...It's a smart, inventive thriller....A great entertainment..." 06/10/1994 p.41 Wall Street Journal
"SPEED has become a classic action thriller, and rightly so. It was made in the predigital days when special effects looked real because most of them were real..." 06/12/2009 Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide 10 of 10
Incredibly kinetic, supercharged action yarn about an elite SWAT-team cop (Reeves) who's targeted by a psycho/mastermind (Hopper), and led onto an L. A. city bus that's triggered to explode. If you're going to make a nonstop action movie, this is the way to do it--with expert pacing, eye-popping stunts and special effects, and characters who make sense. A bull's-eye! - Leonard Maltin
Time Magazine 9 of 10
...the film's sheer cut-to-the-chase straightfowardness is part of its appeal. Speed has terrified (and nicely particularized) passengers, a resourceful hero (Keanu Reeves), a gutsy heroine (the always appealing Sandra Bullock) and a terrific villain (Dennis Hopper, doing what he does best - rationalism gone gaga). The can't-slow-down bus ride is bookended with a pair of thrill sequences, either one of which would provide enough of a plot for most movies. Speed begins with a crowded elevator that is sometimes in free fall and is rigged to explode at a certain floor, and it ends with a driverless subway running out of control, the heroine helpless inside. The movie has two virtues essential to good pop thrillers. First, it plugs uncomplicatedly into lurking anxieties - in this case the ones we brush aside when we daily surrender ourselves to mass transit in a world where the loonies are everywhere. Second, it is executed with panache and utter conviction. Possibly this is because Speed is the first feature for director Jan De Bont and writer Graham Yost, and they haven't yet learned all the bad things that can happen to good (and not so good) moviemakers in Hollywood. - Richard Schickel
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