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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…
Chain Reaction (1996)
Some researchers discover a super-duper energy source and end up getting chased around by bad guys from the fossil fuel industry or the defense industry. This seems to me like it's a propaganda film trying to fool people into thinking that they shouldn't develop alternate energy sources for fear of being persecuted for doing so. (In real life, researchers who develop breakthrough energy tech are actually highly esteemed.)
The movie was made in the mid-90s but the cinematographic techniques are from about 10-20 years before that time. It consists of mostly tropes and stock characters, as you can see in the trailer.
It’s quite sexist in the way it treats the character played by Rachel Weisz. (This was her first major movie role.) She plays a physicist while Keanu Reeves plays a machinist, but his character is the dominant one, while Weisz’s character is portrayed as weak and vulnerable. This treatment of female characters was common in the 20th century and can still be seen in films today.
The acting is pretty well done and very watchable given the material, but they get most of the science facts wrong. I've included some of them in this unauthorized trailer, for example, hydrogen doesn't burn bright orange like that, of course. And they also conflate the chemical burning of hydrogen with nuclear fusion throughout the film. So yeah, a lot of mistakes in this one.
That underground explosion at the beginning of this trailer was not in the actual final cut of the film, but it was included as an end-credit bonus.
Even though this film is just a bunch of stock characters and trite plot elements, the acting is mostly well done and some of the special effects are really pretty impressive. And the sound engineering is top-notch.
If you can keep the propaganda element of the film in perspective and keep in mind the contemporary context of the sexist nature of movies from that period, the film is watchable and even entertaining at some points.
Accessible description of video:
Opening title says “Produced and released by 20th Century Fox” followed by a very large underground nuclear explosion causing a surface collapse; then showing scenes of an Industrial area with Smoke Stacks with smoke flowing into the air; then a guy talking to an audience about hydrogen and water, the scene cuts back and forth between the guy and Keanu Reeves packing something up into his backpack, the guy continues talking and Reeves rides away on a motorcycle with his backpack, then the guy ignites some butane/propane producing an orange flame and he says that it's hydrogen; then cut to a night scene with bad guys with a remote control device that has a gas meter and when it reaches a point he pushes the button to make an explosion happen; there’s a big explosion that starts off as a chemical gas explosion throughout an industrial building then somehow it morphs into a nuclear blast, the blast wave slowly expands out throughout a very wide area in the city as Keanu Reeves on a motorcycle tries to outrun the blast wave and he lays down the bike and slides behind a berm with vehicles and debris flying above him; then some cops are interviewing Reeves and Rachel Weisz; then cut to Morgan Freeman walking through a warehouse/parking garage and meets Keanu and Rachel; then cut to Reese running through a crowded city at night with tense music playing, cops are trying to catch him; then Reeves grabs a pipe and shoves it into some big gear mechanism that stops the gears from moving which stops a drawbridge from moving; Rachel Weisz, in her first big movie role, is pacing in a train station prominently carrying a train ticket that says “save up to 70%” and she briefly talks with a conductor; then fade to a scene with Weisz and Reeves walking through a museum and they meet Morgan Freeman who is smoking a big cigar; then cut to a meeting of the Senate select committee on intelligence with Morgan Freeman talking to a politician who is complaining about money; then Keanu and Rachel are running and Keanu tells Rachel to get into an air boat that has a flat bottom and a big airplane propeller on the back of it, it spins in circles and then heads off across a frozen lake and a helicopter chases it and catches up to it; then cut to title graphic that says, “Chain Reaction” while the letters get big and turn into a scene of an industrial area; fade out.
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