Chain Reaction  (1996)    60/100

Rating :  60/100                                                                      107 Min        12A

A fairly decent action adventure film, very much in the same mould as much of its nineties contemporaries. There’s nothing special here, but going in with no expectations it’s a fairly easy way to spend a couple of hours. When an enterprising group of scientists find a way to create free energy certain industry insiders take exception to the progress of science and mankind in general, forcing young mechanic Keannu Reaves, and an extremely cute award winning physicist Rachel Weisz (circa twenty five here), to deal with the consequences.

Morgan Freeman, Kevin Dunn (the dad in ‘Transformers’), Fred Ward (the one who is isn’t Kevin Bacon in ‘Tremors’) and Dundee born Brian Cox (who, along with Alan Cumming, was one of two actors who joined Scottish first minister Alex Salmond at Cineworld Edinburgh to launch the campaign for Scottish independence recently) round out the rest of the main cast, with the latter establishing his earmark of power hungry secret organisation heads (there’s also a brief scene with a young Michael Shannon in the guise of a florist). An action film build around a premise which could one day in the near future become a reality – indeed, for some real world big business holding back mankind shenanigans watch ‘Who Killed the Electric car’ (06), a fascinating documentary and a good starting point for a story which is ongoing today.

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