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Dom Robinson reviews
20th Century Fox
- Cat.no: 04130 DVD
- Cert: 12
- Running time: 102 minutes
- Year: 1996
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 24 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: 11 languages available
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Making Of “Chain Reaction”
Director:
- Andrew Davis
(Chain Reaction, The Fugitive, Nico: Above the Law, A Perfect Murder, Under Siege)
Producer:
- Arne L. Schmidt and Andrew Davis
Screenplay:
- J.E. Lawton and Michael Bortman
Music:
- Jerry Goldsmith
Cast:
- Eddie Kasalivich: Keanu Reeves (Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey, Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Bram Stoker’s Dracula,Chain Reaction, Devil’s Advocate, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, Feeling Minnesota, Freaked, I Love You To Death, Johnny Mnemonic, The Last Time I Committed Suicide, Little Buddha, The Matrix, Much Ado About Nothing, My Own Private Idaho,Parenthood, Point Break, Speed, Tune in Tomorrow…, A Walk in the Clouds)
Paul Shannon: Morgan Freeman (Amistad, Chain Reaction, Clean and Sober, Deep Impact, Driving Miss Daisy, Glory, Hard Rain,Kiss The Girls, Moll Flanders, Outbreak, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Seven, The Shawshank Redemption, Unforgiven)
Dr. Lily Sinclair: Rachel Weisz (Amy Foster, Chain Reaction, Going All the Way, I Want You, The Land Girls, The Mummy, Stealing Beauty, TV: My Summer with Des)
Lyman Earl Collier: Brian Cox (The Boxer, Chain Reaction, Desperate Measures, Hidden Agenda, Iron Will, Kiss The Girls, Manhunter, Rob Roy, TV: Inspector Morse, Sharpe)
Chain Reactionis the name given to this film because it revolves around the scientictheory of converting the hydrogren extracted from water into a renewable sourceof cheap, clean and efficient energy. Sounds a wonderful concept and one that’sneeded in this film because all the world’s energy sources are close to theend of their life, despite being set in the present day.
However, someone doesn’t like it because the whole plant gets sabotaged andexplodes just as machinist Eddie Kasalivich (Keanu Reeves) gets on hisbike and is about to leave. He’s already dropped off the girl at home whobecomes his love interest – physicist Dr. Lily Sinclair (Rachel Weisz) -so she doesn’t get to witness the result, but who could be behind it? Is itbureaucrat Paul Shannon (Morgan Freeman) who may or may not be on theirside, or his colleague Lyman Earl Collier (Brian Cox) ? Hmmm… toughchoice. Who, in the past few years has made a career out of good guys and whobad?
Everyone’s under suspicion particularly Eddie because he blew up the labat the placed where he studied as an experiment went wrong. FBI Agents Mulderand Scul…, I mean Ford (Fred Ward) and Doyle (Kevin Dunn) wantto know.
Following an impressive explosion scene as Eddie escapes, things go rapidlydownhill from here. The minute he falls off, the explosion suddenly goes nofurther and he comes away unscathed. There’s nothing else that goes on in thisfilm that we haven’t see before so you may as well stop at that point.
If you continue, you’ll see endless chase scenes, zero entertainment orsuspense, poor acting (even from the usually-reliable Freeman and Cox, whojust look bored throughout) and nothing unexpected.
The image is framed at the original cinema ratio of 1.85:1 and is anamorphic,but lacks impact, is a bit grainy at times and has a few flecks on the print.The average bitrate is a good 6.41Mb/s, often hovering around the 7Mb/s mark.
The sound is better, with explosions sounding very good, but any sort of actionis few and far between so don’t come as often as they should.
Extras : Chapters :There are 24 chapters during the 102-minute film which is good. At this pointI’d normally say that like every Andrew Davis film, everything there isto be seen, of worth, in the film can be seen in the trailer. However, it’snot included. Languages and Subtitles :There’s just one language on this disc – English – in Dolby Surround.Subtitles come in 11 flavours: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish,Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandicand English for the hearing impaired. Making Of “Chain Reaction” :A 14-minute featurette that goes behind the scenes, but doesn’t tell you muchof interest. It gives away how the big explosion at the start of the film wasdone and features chat from the main four actors listed at the top of thisreview, proving it’s not just Cox and Freeman who can look bored in their work.
Director Andrew Davis says his piece about how he allowed the actors toimprovise a great deal and didn’t storyboard the film as one usually would.Perhaps that explains what a mess it turns out to be.
Menu :The menus are all static and silent, with the basic options you’d expect.
Overall, this is one film that shouldn’t have been made full-stop. AndrewDavis is the opposite of King Midas: everything he touches turns to (expletivedeleted) and that also goes for The Fugitive and Under Siege.
If you did like it though, try to get it at a second-hand-type price and not thefull twenty notes.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.