Okay, here's the deal. There was a time when the mere sight of a number in a movie title would absolutely scare me to death. I don't mean stuff like The 39 Steps or The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. I'm talking 'bout those numbers at the end of the title, those evil Roman numerals that mean the same unholy mess rehashed into a supposedly new movie. And, if, God forbid, the number is immediately followed by a colon and some silly phrase, well, just shoot me in the pinky toe with a flare gun. I'd rather watch my nail char up than sit through that malarkey.

'Course, the sequel is a fairly new idea, as Hollywood history goes. Sometimes, the sequel can be a pretty good idea, if it follows a logical series of characters (the Indiana Jones movies, James Bond, etc.) through a new adventure. Even there, though, you run into some uneven stuff. Take the Star Trek movies, for example. The even-numbered ones are pretty good, if you can look past Shatner's overacting and organic toupees. The odd-numbered ones are just long, drawn-out attempts to skip lightly through a money pit.

For every decent sequel, like Back To The Future Part II and The Empire Strikes Back, you can choke on ones like Teen Wolf Too and Weekend at Bernie's II. For every Bond and Indy, you get open sores like Friday the 13th: Infinity and A Nightmare on Elm Street: BR-549.

Let's face it, folks. I can only truly gush over one sequel, and one sequel only. It used existing characters, but it took the story to new depths of personality and a fascinating study of a man being swayed by power and his own desires. Old characters were fleshed out to show the origins of the power, and newer characters were added to push the action to its fullest. It took the broad vision of Francis Ford Coppola to give us The Godfather, Part Two. Nobody has done it better since. Not by a long shot. I'm getting goose-flesh just thinking about it.

And, patients, all this is why I was less than thrilled when I pulled into the parking lot to peep at Speed 2: Cruise Control. Warning flags were out (note the number and the colon and the silly phrase), but I swallowed my fears and blew a greenback kiss toward Darlene The Ticket Taker. And, wonder of wonders, when the last reel unwinded, I'd had a pretty good time. But, there's a major reason why I enjoyed this sequel: Folks, this ain't no sequel.

Sure we have Sandra Bullock, and, yes, she's playing the same character she played in Speed, and, alright, there's a cop in there, but, that's really where it ends as far as sequels go. This time, she and her SWAT-team squeeze, the ever-intense Jason Patric (last seen in Sleepers) are on a lovely cruise, complete with shuffleboard, rhumba lessons on the Lido Deck and Your Afroed Bartender, Isaac. But a ticked-off former employee, played by the former-thumbless, ever-scary looking Willem Dafoe, has taken control of the ship and he's going to ram either a Carribean port city or a supertanker full of Black Gold, Texas Tea. And guess which twosome has to stop this from happening....

Ding! Tell them what they've won, Don Pardo!

I'm not gonna kid you, guys and dolls. This thing reaches nowhere near the heights of the original Speed. It doesn't have the imagination or the bombastic brilliance of the original, nor is the tension as clean and quiet. For that reason alone, I stand by my argument that the original was a decidedly happy accident, where casting, script, director, and action all morphed together in sweet harmony.

This time, they sacrificed a little imagination and a taste of detail to go for The Big Bang Theory of Summer Moviemaking. And, while we get a lot more stuntwork (most of it from the "Holy Mother of Pearl!" school), and some fantastic action sequences, we get Sweet Sandra as the link to the past. Her part is not as integral as it was in the first one. This time, she takes a back seat to Patric as he runs all the badness out of Margaritaville. But her presence is enough to keep this whole outlandish plotline believable. She has the amazing ability to play people you can't help but like, and, by liking Annie as much as we all do, we can accept that she's dealing with another cake-brain who wants to 'splode stuff.

Dafoe makes a much better villain than Dennis Hopper. Instead of the patented Hopper lunatic, (bugged out eyes and paranoid giggles) we get a thinking man's wacko, who rips a page from the Post Office Orientation Book and takes over the ship to get back at his bosses for pink-slippin' him out of a job. Dafoe is consistent, devilishly amusing, and even makes his wild scheme plausible just by the loony look in his eye.

On the other hand, Jason Patric could stand a muscle relaxer or two, though. His acting is better than most action heroes, and he did most of his own stuntwork, which I applaud, but I think he musta stepped on a rusty nail somewhere. This guy's jaw is so locked up, you'd think you were watching Dirty Harry on a wired-jaw diet. And, one more thing, does Jason Patric have a Revlon deal or something, 'cause he was wearing WAYYYY too much eyeliner for a man...? (Heck, he was wearing way too much eyeliner for Michael Jackson.)

On the directorial side, I have to give credit to Jan de Bont for out-booming Jerry Bruckheimer and managing to actually tell a story amid all the shrapnel. He gets some fun dialogue sequences and terrific looking images, and, you gotta give him this, the man knows how to pace an action flick. Adding to the fun, his effects team and stunt crew strut through with some major boffo wildness.

But, as I said, this thing is not a sequel, and I don't want you wading in thinking it is one. This movie could easily stand on its own under the title Cruise Control. Change Bullock's name and a few references here and there, and you'd get a rip-roarin' good action movie without all the attendant baggage that accompanies a "sequel." This thing would, hands down, beat anything Segal and Van Damme have done in the past three years. (Personal note to Steven Segal here: the best movie you've made in your career was Executive Decision, and your character bought it thirty minutes in. What does that tell you?)

It'd be easy as icebox to write this thing off and take a break from the bombardment at the box office, thinking you can catch the baby when it comes out on VHS. Fair enough. Yet listen up, Jack and Diane, let me remind you of a time not too long ago, when you tried to sit back in your Barcalounger and watch another little de Bont sketch on your VCR, a little ditty called Twister. Remember how much that movie lost on a 20" screen and them little tweeters? Speed 2: Cruise Control will suffer the same way. You can watch it on TV, but it won't be the same. Not by a long shot.

Speed 2 is not equal to the original, no. But in a world of paint-by-numbers sequels, it holds its own very nicely. You can count on it.