Hollywood loves the chase film, it transcends all genres of story. Hollywood also loves stories about technology, especially stuff that can wreck a few dozen city blocks.

Chain Reaction fits these loves of Hollywood to a T. It involves the work of a group of scientists to create cheap sustainable power by splitting the oxygen and hydrogen from water. This is nothing new; we do it today with electricity, and have powered all of our manned space craft this way.

The trouble is this process is very expensive and is really only used for fuel cells rather then an alternative fuel. OK, setting now complete. In the beginning of the film, the scientists will make a breakthrough, and cheap sustainable power will be created from water for the first time.

BOOM!

Of course, someone has to poop in the punch bowl. Cheap, clean power would be way too beneficial to let go on our economy. Damn, we'd have nothing to fight over! So the bad guys blow up the lab, kill the chief scientist and frame everyone else. The chase begins.

From this point on, we're not going to get many more intellectual pursuits. Just people running around, avoiding cops whilst trying to piece together who the bad guys are, and how to expose them.

Morgan Freeman is rather plastic as the "good" bad guy. He's the one who doesn't tell the scientists that he'll kill them when their work is done. He's from the government, and he's here to help. Yeah, sure. But Freeman does give Chain Reaction its only shot at intrigue. Why the CIA is funding this project is, of course, never revealed. It doesn't matter that this technology has no surveillance value whatsoever. The writer should have picked on the NSA, who also would have never funded this, but they're more in vogue to blame horrible things on.

If there's a cheap rental available for this film, it's not bad on a rainy afternoon. Get some Ben & Jerry's and a few smart-ass friends to poke holes in the plot, and you have a great alternative to watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.