REVIEW: CHAIN REACTION
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1996 Michael Redman
*1/2 (out of ****)
For some reason director Andrew Davis decided to remake his own movie "The Fugitive" and had the brainstorm to cast Keanu Reeves in the Harrison Ford role. This must be why he's making the big bucks out in Hollywood while the rest of us are slaving away for peanuts.
Eddie Kasalivich, a nice Chicago boy genius, is a grad student techie working on the mysterious Hydrogen Energy Project (mysterious partially because the science doesn't make much sense) when things start to go a little wrong. Immediately after they finally get the thing to work, the chief scientist is murdered and the project blows up, leveling eight blocks of the Windy City. Of course Eddie is on the run from the FBI because they think he is selling secrets to whoever our enemy is nowadays, but it's really the one-armed man...no, wait, that's the other film.
Blazing through this non-start adventure film, Reeves looks as uninvolved as possible, which appears to be the extent of his acting ability. There are a few good scenes -- the explosion in Chicago is well done, although you've seen that on the previews already -- but most of the so-called action scenes will leave you begging for less. The ice boat on the frozen lake sequence is a masterpiece of bad logic, implausibility and poor cinematography.
As various organizations join the chase, the main theme of the film becomes which governmental agency is the most evil: the Chicago Cops, the FBI, the CIA or the CIA Front. Morgan Freeman is the best bad guy/good guy (Fred Ward is definitely not Tommy Lee Jones) owing at least partially to his god-like voice. Although Freeman takes his character as far as possible, we're just talking a short drive in the country.
Davis says that the film was made up as they went along. I believe it. Of all the "Destroy The Cities" films out this summer, this is one that should have been saved for the late show along with the Godzilla movies.
[This appeared in "The Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana, 8/8/96. Michael Redman can be reached at mredman@bvoice.com]
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