The worst and most unintentionally hysterical rip-off of Speed yet!
Chill Factor (1999)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:72
Fresh:5
Rotten:67
Average Rating:3.3/10
Consensus: Claiming it fails on every level, critics had almost nothing good to say about this movie.
Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: 10 years after an army accident involving a chemical weapon with the power to fry the skin off every living thing within a five mile radius, the army major who wrongly took the blame is released... 10 years after an army accident involving a chemical weapon with the power to fry the skin off every living thing within a five mile radius, the army major who wrongly took the blame is released from prison and is out for vengeance. The means? Yes, the very same weapon, which must in fact stay at a temperature 50 degrees or colder or it will detonate. Enter an ice cream truck driver (Gooding) and a drifter (Ulrich), who with the help of the scientist (Paymer) who designed the weapon, are determined to keep it cold and out of the wrong hands. [More]
Starring: Cuba Gooding, Skeet Ulrich, Peter Firth, David Paymer
Starring: Cuba Gooding, Skeet Ulrich, Peter Firth, David Paymer
Director: Hugh Johnson
Director: Hugh Johnson
Screenwriter: Drew Gitlin, Mike Cheda
Producer: James G. Robinson
Composer: Hans Zimmer, John Powell
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Reviews for Chill Factor
Chill Factor is just the kind of failed action picture one expects to see during these final days of August.
After winning a well-deserved Oscar for his role as a high-strung football player in Jerry Maguire, this talented actor has become an intolerable screen presence.
Technical credits are superior, the scenery is gorgeous, but Chill Factor, for all its virtuoso calamities, is just another demolition derby.
An utterly unmemorable piece of dreck that centers on an explosive substance nearly as toxic as this movie.
The makers were certainly never aiming for the cerebral, but nonetheless seem happy from the outset to simply cobble together a couple of action staples and hope it'll all work out. Strangely enough, it doesn't.
Note to struggling actors everywhere: if you think winning an Academy Award will make your career spring to life, look at the career of Cuba Gooding Jr.
Chill Factor is a picture well below zero, a thriller that confuses pace with tension and wisecracks with humor.
This movie should come in a white box with a generic label -- it is all concept and explosions, with nothing worthwhile in its plot, character, or dialogue.
The chases and shootouts and close calls seem sort of flat and tired, barely raising a jitter in your belly.
We might have gotten funnier turns from Gooding and Ulrich if their performances weren't so chopped up. As such, their banter becomes merely something to be suffered through until we get to the next big explosion. Which is coming. Fast.
Hard as the two actors strive for lovable eccentricity, they emerge as irritating oddities.
Utterly lacking the drive and roller-coaster energy expected of top action pics, this latest try at repackaging Speed is a Kmart version of a Jerry Bruckheimer production.
So eager is Chill Factor to include every possible cliche, indeed, that it even keeps one as a spare.
The pervasive feel of clock-punching industrial filmmaking at its dreary nadir makes Chill Factor a marginal bargain, even by low seasonal-clearance standards.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 15% 15% | The Ugly Truth |
| 98% 98% | Up |
| 36% 36% | G.I. Joe: The Rise of … |
| 52% 52% | The Taking of Pelham 1… |
| 45% 45% | Ice Age: Dawn of the D… |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
| 68% 68% | Funny People |
| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| 45% 45% | Shorts |
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