In all the years I’ve spent pushing my vendetta against
SPEED 2, I have rarely given Sandra Bullock much guff for getting involved with
this picture. I do recall much being played out in the “Entertainment Press” at
the time, partly because she wasn’t all that willing to do it without Keanu
Reeves. He refused and she seemed to get pressured into making this turkey with
no real thought to consequences. I’m sure I could find quotes as to how little
she wanted to do it before being signed, but really, who cares. What’s done is
done and let the sack of doorknobs hit hard as they may.
Ms. Bullock made her film debut in 1987, playing a role in
HANGMEN, alongside such esteemed actors as Jake LaMotta. If anyone saw this
movie, please let me know. I’ve never had the pleasure. Between then and 1993,
she meandered through television, telefilm and a few stinkers that were
probably never released to the silver screen. She struck the eye of many a
fanboy and critic alike in the Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes action mashup,
DEMOLITION MAN. She was cute, perky and could deliver a line. She got really
lucky with SPEED in ’94, the surprise hit of the summer. She got pretty busy at
this point, doing a large number of flicks in a short period of time. Some were
good and made good money (WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING and THE NET) while others…
well, let’s take a look at those.
Anyone remember LOVE POTION #9? No? Too bad, it didn’t suck
completely. It wasn’t good by any means, but what do you expect for a movie
that made more money as a VHS rental than at the box office. It was also made
before Sandra Bullock was a household name, so I don’t really hold this in the
same regard as a 160 million dollar waste of expense. Post-SPEED and pre-SPEED
2, she co-starred in TWO IF BY SEA with Dennis Leary, who was trying to break
away from his embittered comedy act and feed his family. TWO IF BY SEA was
again, not a terribly bad movie. It also seemed to find an audience in rentals
where it didn’t at the theatre. I think it was the mismatch of these two that
did this movie injustice rather than the bizarre plot. Feel like a night of
Bullock misfires that won’t melt your brain? Put in LOVE POTION #9, TWO IF BY
SEA and the 2000 runaway snoozer, 28 DAYS, where she plays a drunk thrown into
rehab. If it weren’t for supporting cast members in 28 DAYS, it might be just
enough to be used as a sleep aid.
In ’98 she co-starred (again) in PRACTICAL MAGIC, a really
girly flick with Nicole Kidman. I’m not sure if studios thought that she wasn’t
good enough to hold a movie by herself or that they thought more than one star
would bring in more money at this point in her career. PRACTICAL MAGIC was no
flop, but it was no hit either, making critics question her “star power”. I
wouldn’t have said that with this movie, which holds no interest at all for me.
Bullock and Kidman play sisters that are also witches and apothecaries. Yeah.
Guess which one was the “bad witch”? When THE CRAFT came out in ’96, everyone
had to do something with witches, to the chagrin of the 700 CLUB viewers and
donation junkies. PRACTICAL MAGIC was the flip side of THE CRAFT, in some ways.
Since no movie ever gets Wicca or witches or magic ever done right, I’ll move
on to something more interesting before someone throws another curse on me.
While investigating Sandra Bullocks’ career, I discovered
two things. One, she had co-starred in a 1999 movie with the incredibly wooden
Ben Affleck. Two, she had three movies released in 2000, one I had never even
heard of, much less seen. To not have seen her debut film is one thing, but not
to know about a movie with Liam Neeson and Oliver Platt as the headliners? Odd.
The Affleck mess I’ve seen; it’s called FORCES OF NATURE. The less said about
it the better, because it reeked worse than the week-old hamburger in my
fridge. Ben Affleck… he’s just so bad! I mean, if I have to, I’ll watch it
again for this month if a copy still exists somewhere. It’s not GIGLI bad, but
I had put it out of my mind so much I had to read the synopsis to remember it…
and try not to scream out in the library. FORCES OF NATURE is sort of a ‘comedy
of errors’ with no laughs. Its PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES with no charm,
spark or intelligence. Tack on a romance to anchor the whole story and you’ve
got yourself a real bomb. It’s not as bad as SPEED 2 largely due to the
supporting cast, but it was just about as big of a flop. GUN SHY I never heard
of – have you? Neeson. Platt. The resonant movie voiceover just kills with
those two names, no? If it weren’t for MISS CONGENIALITY, the third film of her
2000 releases, I think studios would have started to blacklist her. Not that
MISS CONGENIALITY was great stuff, but it made money and that’s really what
matters to them at the end of the day.
Over all, as I look at her entire career, she has very few
duds. Sure, a lot of them are not great, thought inducing material, but they’re
popcorn entertainment at the very least. I couldn’t find another clunker on the
list until THE PROPOSAL of 2009. I didn’t hate this movie when I watched it but
it did not break new ground. It felt like a rewrite of WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
set in Washington State. It also co-stars Ryan Reynolds who looks to be Sandra
Bullocks’ 20 year junior. It was a strange film of an even stranger romance and
if you haven’t seen it, I can’t really recommend it. I wouldn’t even put it in
the same realm as the trio of her movies I listed earlier for a night of
Bullock. She does have quite a few films of the last ten years I have not seen
yet, so maybe there might be another nearly as bad as SPEED 2 or FORCE OF
NATURE. Your suggestions are welcome.
Prepare yourselves for a volatile day 5 as I visit a
specific Guillermo Del Toro movie of recent vintage. It’s going to make the
interwebs blush.
For more movie vitriol, head on over to From the Hip and
listen to the latest podcast where host Vinnie, myself and John “Speed 2”
Amenta discuss terrible, terrible films we’ve seen.
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