Annie Porter
| Annie Porter | |
|---|---|
| Speed character | |
| File:Annie Porter.jpg Sandra Bullock as Annie Porter in Speed. | |
| First appearance | Speed (1994) |
| Last appearance | Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) |
| Created by | Jan de Bont |
| Portrayed by | Sandra Bullock |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Significant other | Jack Traven Alex Shaw |
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Annie Porter is a fictional character from the 1994 feature film Speed and its sequel Speed 2: Cruise Control, portrayed by Sandra Bullock. Bullock disliked the script for Speed 2 and only agreed to reprise her role as Annie if 20th Century Fox agreed to finance her next film, Hope Floats.
Casting[edit]
Sandra Bullock came to read for Speed with co-star Keanu Reeves to make sure there was the right chemistry between the two actors. Originally, Bullock's character was intended to be a comic-relief sidekick to Jack, with Ellen DeGeneres in mind for the part. Instead, Annie became both Jack's sidekick and later love interest. Bullock recalled that Reeves and her had to do "all these really physical scenes together, rolling around on the floor and stuff."[1] Bullock agreed to star in the sequel Speed 2: Cruise Control in order to get financial backing for her drama film Hope Floats (1998), and was paid a reported $11–$12.5 million to reprise her role as Annie Porter.[2][3]
Character Biography[edit]
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Speed[edit]
Annie is trying to catch the bus, driven by her friend Sam, who tells her that he doesn't allow cigarettes on his bus. She puts it out and gets in just in time, sitting right in front of an obnoxious Wisconsin tourist named Larry, who annoys her so much that she takes the gum out of her mouth and acts like she found it on her seat so she can get away from him. She then sits next to an old woman named Helen who makes small talk by saying that she likes the bus because it is more relaxing than having to sit through stressful traffic. Annie responds that she misses her car. At this time, Jack Traven races to catch up to the bus and manages to get on, but only after it passes 50 miles per hour, activating a bomb hidden on the bus. Annie sees Jack and tells Sam not to let him on.
While Jack explains the situation to the driver Sam, a paranoid passenger, thinking Jack is there to arrest him, threatens Jack with a gun and fires, striking Sam in the arm by accident while being subdued. Annie takes over as Sam is cared for while Jack restrains the paranoid passenger and informs the rest of the situation. With advice from the police, Jack has Annie drive the bus off the busy freeway, through city streets, and eventually onto an incomplete 105 Freeway devoid of traffic. The police soon arrive to escort the bus, while news helicopters fly overhead and report on the story.
Jack, with the help of the passengers, is able to describe the bomb on the undercarriage to Harry; Harry focuses on a cheap gold watch that is part of the bomb's mechanism. Jack convinces the bomber to allow them to offload Sam to a police flatbed truck to get medical attention; but Helen, who cannot stand to stay on the bus any longer, attempts to follow. Unfortunately, the bomber sees Helen trying to escape and detonates a smaller bomb under the bus's stairs, sending her to the pavement where she is crushed by its tires. Jack assumes the bomber is monitoring the situation, and has the trailing helicopters cleared out.
The police discover that the incomplete freeway has a gap in an overpass, and Jack directs Annie to go at full speed, allowing them to clear it. Shortly after, he sees they are close to Los Angeles International Airport, and directs Annie to it; its tarmac will give them enough clear space to drive while the news helicopters cannot enter the airspace.
Jack, after getting off the bus, then sends himself under the bus via a cart towed from a vehicle leading the bus to try to defuse the bomb with Harry's verbal help to no avail, but Harry's team soon discover the identity of the bomber: Howard Payne, a former police officer who worked on Atlanta's bomb squad, and was forced to retire in 1989 after an explosion caused him to lose a finger; the watch being his retirement present. With this knowledge, Harry gets his team to track down Payne's Los Angeles address while telling Jack to stay put. However, debris on the tarmac cause the cart to become unsteady, and Jack's only recourse is to puncture the side of the gas tank with a screwdriver to avoid falling under the bus. The passengers use a floor panel to rescue Jack in time.
Jack gets the police to work with one of the news crews to find the camera's signal, record a sequence of footage, and then rebroadcast that on that channel to falsify the camera signal back to Payne. This allows them to rescue all the passengers safely as the bus's fuel level drains. Jack stays with Annie to keep the bus steady, and then escapes with her using the floor panel. The unmanned bus then runs into the side of an empty cargo plane and explodes.
Following the explosion of the unmanned bus, Annie joins Jack and the police as they wait at the designated drop spot at Pershing Square with marked bills for Payne, since they want to take Payne alive to prevent any more threats he has in store. However, Payne finally discovers the looping feed and sees that the police are waiting for him, much to his anger. Observing Annie nearby, Payne poses as a police officer and leads her away. The police drop the money in a trash can (the designated drop spot), but Jack later finds a hole below it leading to the subway system.
Jack follows and encounters Payne with the money and Annie as his hostage, the latter now wearing a vest lined with explosives that will go off if he drops a trigger on a device he holds. Jack angrily demands Payne to let Annie go, saying that he can get away with the money, but Payne refuses, still threatening to drop the trigger. Payne then drags Annie onto a subway train, forcing its conductor to set the train in motion while forcing the other passengers to leave by threatening to shoot them. As the train heads forward, Payne kills the conductor after handcuffing Annie to a pole, but Jack is able to catch onto it at the last moment.
Jack frees Annie from the vest safely, they find the brakes on the train are now broken and have no way to communicate with the police. Even worse, Jack cannot free Annie from the pole, as there are no keys to the handcuffs. Jack realizes their best chance to survive is to derail the train along a curved part of the track, and sets the train into its highest speed. As expected, the train derails through an area under construction, and the car they are in slides along an uncompleted tunnel, flying out and landing on Hollywood Boulevard. Safe and realizing that they have fallen in love with each other, the two share a kiss while tourists watch and take photos.
Speed 2: Cruise Control[edit]
Annie, having left Jack due to him giving her pepper spray for their anniversary, which she mistook for perfume, hence had to go to the emergency room, runs into her new boyfriend Alex Shaw during her driving test, and discovers that he is on the SWAT team after he lied and told her he was a beach cop. As an apology, Alex surprises her with a Caribbean cruise on Seabourn Legend.
Aboard the ship, passenger John Geiger hacks into the ship's computer system, and the following evening, he destroys the ship's communication systems and kills the captain by throwing him overboard. After remotely shutting down the ship's engines, Geiger calls the bridge to tell the first officer, Juliano, that the captain is dead and Juliano is now in charge. He is ordered by Geiger to evacuate the ship, during which Geiger steals jewelry from the ship's vault. Annie and Alex try to board the last lifeboat, however, Geiger programs the ship to start moving and the winch lowering the lifeboat gets jammed. Alex jumps onto the boat to rescue the passengers falling off, and Annie and Juliano use the ship's gangplank to get the passengers back onto the deck.
Annie and Dante, the ship's photographer, notice people trapped behind the fire doors, and Annie uses a chainsaw to cut the door open and let them out. The crew notice that Geiger has set the ship to crash into an oil tanker off the coast of Saint Martin. Alex decides to stop the ship by diving underneath it and jamming the propeller with a steel cable. Geiger realizes Alex is trying to stop the ship, so he jams the cable winch while Alex is underwater, causing it to break off the ship and free the cable. Geiger takes Annie hostage and escapes with her on a boat from the back of the ship.
To avoid collision with the oil tanker, Alex and Dante go into the bilge pump room and use the bow thrusters to turn the ship. The ship screeches down the side of the tanker, but manages to withstand the damage, and heads straight into a marina. It then crashes into a Saint Martin town, which eventually brings the ship to a halt. Alex jumps off to rescue Annie and hijacks a speed boat from Maurice, forcing him to chase after Annie. Geiger takes Annie onto a seaplane, and Alex shoots it from the boat with a speargu and reels himself in through the water. Alex climbs onto the plane and rescues Annie, and both escape from the plane on one of its floats, which falls onto the water. Geiger loses control of the plane and crashes into the oil tanker, causing it to explode. Annie and Alex travel back to shore in Maurice's boat, and Alex gives Annie a wedding ring, asking her if she will "wear it for a while", and she accepts.
Reception[edit]
For her portrayal of Annie, Bullock won the 1994 Saturn Award for Best Actress, along with Jamie Lee Curtis (True Lies).[4] At the 1995 MTV Movie Awards, Bullock won Best Female Performance, Most Desirable Female and Best On-Screen Duo (shared with Reeves).[5]
References[edit]
- ↑ Svetkey, Benjamin (July 22, 1994). "Overdrive". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved April 9, 2009.
- ↑ Brennan, Judy; Nashawaty, Chris (April 25, 1997). "Speed Ships Out". Entertainment Weekly (376). Retrieved May 30, 2015.
- ↑ Nadel, Nick (June 10, 2008). "How Sandra Bullock Used Speed 2 to Fuel Her Passion Project Hope Floats". AMC. Archived from the original on March 22, 2011. Retrieved March 18, 2011.
- ↑ Crowe, Jerry (June 27, 1995). "Honors". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
- ↑ "News real mixed media high - 'Speed' action at MTV Awards". Daily News. June 13, 1995. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
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