Speed (1994 film)/YMMV

• Complete Monster: Howard Payne. The only time he shows even a glimpse of humanity is allowing Jack to unload the injured driver off the bus (and only after Jack convinces him the police will work faster at getting the money if he "showed a little charity"). He quickly snaps back into monster mode moments later, detonating the bus steps when a panicked passenger tries to bail as well.
• Contrived Coincidence: The bus also just happens to have a trigger-happy gangbanger on it, who shoots the driver accidentally and allows Annie to take his place.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: The scene where the bus is forced to turn into a one way street in the opposite direction to dodge a truck, at that moment, the score hits the accelerator into a frantic tempo as the bus is forced to dodge oncoming traffic as a life and death challenge.
  • Actually, the whole soundtrack applies. The recurrent main theme fits the tone of the movie to a T, and the general tempo of the music always reinforces the sense of speed.
• Ending Fatigue: The subway chase at the end is almost completely divorced from the main body of the film and seems to be there just to engineer a showdown between Payne and Traven - after all, they couldn't exactly get the bad guy onto the bus in any plausible way.
• Freud Was Right: Harry compares the bomber's over-enthusiasm for detonating his own explosives with premature ejaculation.
• Replacement Scrappy: Alex Shaw (Jason Patric) in the sequel.
• Sequelitis: And how.
  • The ending sequence of the Sequel apparently cost more than the original movie.
• Strangled by the Red String: Jack and Annie. After knowing each other for all of a few hours, they're making out and about to have sex in a wrecked subway car in the middle of a street with a crowd of people watching. Truth in Television, people bond over traumatic experiences quickly regardless of compatibility. They both lampshade this.

Jack: I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.

Annie: OK. We'll have to base it on sex then.

• • In the sequel, they've broken up.

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