Eye Candy #523 - "Chain Reaction"

Chain Reaction:  A post-“Speed”, pre-”Matrix” offering from Keanu Reeves, about the invention of bubble fusion by a team of researchers from the University of Chicago and the shadowy government types trying to capture and control the information, up to and including eliminating those involved.  Their experiments involving bombarding water with sonoluminescence to cause fusion…and that’s about as deep as the explanation of the science involved gets in the film, because it all takes a backseat to a couple of really big explosions and a pair of fleeing scientists, played by Keanu Reeves and a very young Rachel Weisz (she was 25 at the time and looks like the least convincing, worldly physicist since Denise Richards in “The World is Not Enough“), trying to find out the truth.  Morgan Freeman plays a CIA spook-type responsible for helping fund the bubble fusion project in the first place, and Brian Cox plays a murderous cohort of his.   Fred Ward and Kevin Dunn are FBI agents trying to sort out what went wrong and who’s responsible.  Director Andrew Davis knows how to craft a good thriller.  He gave us “The Fugitive” and “Under Siege”, so the man knows what he’s doing, but here, even though the film is slicker than snot and the set pieces work,  the script has numerous plot holes and gives you no reason to care about the people involved, as stuff starts blowing up almost immediately.   Freeman has the meatiest part (and it’s against type for him) and he fares the best.  But you know next to nothing about Reeves and Weisz’ characters, making it hard to root for them.  There‘s a strong emotional detachment.   And Keanu Reeves has the 3rd most painful-looking run in all of film, after Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren.  Woodchuck sez, “Disappointing effort.”