| Twentieth Century Fox | Release Date: August 2, 1996 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
6
Mixed:
7
Negative:
9
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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]
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