Critic Reviews

A conspiracy tale of high-tech chicanery, Chain Reaction has better acting, better writing, more spectacular chase sequences and more genuine drama than all of this summer's blockbusters. It's also got Morgan Freeman, as good an actor as we have today, which easily qualifies it as the one action film you should see this summer if you see no other.

Chain Reaction, while crisply shot, unfolds in an action-suspense-thriller void. The movie’s emblem might be the terse, bureaucratically impersonal performance of Morgan Freeman, who, as the energy project’s chief government liaison, manages to play the film’s most ambiguous character without raising its dramatic temperature one degree.

By movie's end, I'd seen some swell photography and witnessed some thrilling chase scenes, but when it came to understanding the movie, I didn't have a clue.

Aside from the lip service paid to the pros and cons of releasing free hydrogen onto the world market, Chain Reaction doesn't contain anything that we haven't already seen this summer. The explosive destruction that wipes out a portion of Chicago looks like it could have been excised from Independence Day. The action sequences recall Mission Impossible, Eraser, and The Rock, albeit with less energy. The concept of government agents being bad guys has been used so often that it has long since turned into a tired cliche. Chain Reaction isn't dull -- the film is paced to keep audiences attentive -- but the lack of originality dampens its enjoyability. As a result, box office reaction will almost certainly be more like a spark than an explosion.

The formula in Chain Reaction is familiar, but at least it has been entrusted to a proven technician. [2 Aug 1996, p.03]

Taken as mindless entertainment, "Chain Reaction" is a cut or two below "Independence Day" and a couple of cuts above "Fled." It's a little better than "Eraser," not as good as "The Rock." [2 Aug 1996, p.3E]

Unlike ''The Fugitive,'' which had tremendous dramatic urgency, this film isn't clear enough to build suspense that escalates from scene to scene...A lively look and some frantically inventive action scenes generate energy, even if the gimmicks do have an edge of desperation. Mr. Davis churns out vigorous excitement inside the working of a drawbridge, in a science museum, in a secret bunker and on a frozen lake.

Director Andrew Davis (THE FUGITIVE) punches out the action sequences with frightening efficiency, and The Fugitive Guy keeps things moving -- so fast, in fact, that it's easy to get lost in the tangle of conflicting conspiracies. The whole breathless business feels as though it should be over about 15 minutes before it is.

Reeves is immediately on the run after the explosion, one of at least a dozen images of him running from danger in "Chain Reaction." He runs so much, sometimes with a boring female scientist in tow, that you think he's been cast in the role of the bus in "Speed." He's shot at, bombed and chased by fireballs...But no amount of speed can distract us from an unfulfilling story about just who wants to destroy this breakthrough experiment. Only Freeman's rich voice holds any interest; it's a powerful instrument, highlighted by pauses and economy of speech, that is captivating in roles as diverse as this one and the veteran con in "The Shawshank Redemption."

Chain Reaction never develops a sense of mounting energy. The action sequences are thinly conceived and too spread out by dramatic filler (mainly involving the crises of conscience of Morgan Freeman, as the project's enigmatic chief fund-raiser) to create much momentum. [2 Aug 1996, p.45]