CHILL FACTOR
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****):  * 1/2

Like a cook who uses only leftovers, Hollywood, once its finds a hit formula, keeps looking for ways to reblend the same basic ingredients. When they've exhausted the sequel approach, they look for variations on the same recipe.

SPEED was a gigantic hit, so how about movie in which the threat is a chemical weapon that goes lethal above 50 degrees? Blend this using the tried and true buddy formula. Sprinkle in lots of action and explosions. Voilà, a hit. Or so Warner Brothers hopes in Hugh Johnson's CHILL FACTOR starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Skeet Ulrich.

As the story opens, civilian scientist Dr. Richard Long (David Paymer) is going to be making a safe test of a new deforestation bomb. At the last minute he decides to turbo charge the chemical cocktail. When it comes time to start the test, the computer simulation of his tweak isn't completed yet, but the milquetoast doctor manages somehow to bully the tough Major Andrew Brynner (Peter Firth) into going ahead anyway with the experiment, even if it puts his troops in jeopardy. When it goes horribly wrong, Brynner is sent to prison for 10 years for dereliction of duty while the scientist, who feels really terrible about killing all of those soldiers, keeps on working for the government.

The body of the movie happens 10 years later after Brynner is out of prison. He shows up to steal the substance -- it's called Elvis so the script can make lots of jokes -- from Dr. Long.

Drew Gitlin and Mike Cheda's hackneyed script is likely to draw groans as it constantly insults the audience's intelligence. Dr. Long, an accomplished fly fisherman, uses his hobby for giving lessons in life to his friend, Tim Mason (Ulrich). "Power without caution is death," Dr. Long lectures Mason as they fish. Huh.

The director's cliched staging includes bathing the bad guys in constant heavy dark shadows and the good guys in bright lights. When Brynner greets his sleek, covert troops at the beginning of their mission to steal Elvis, he has but one order. "We all know what we have to do, so let's do it," he says in a bit of inspiration that has them locking and loading.

"If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, we know you'll find your way there quickly," Brynner sneers at the doctor when he sees him for the first time after prison. "It's not such a bad place. I know. I was there."

The movie has more than enough logical holes for a whole fleet of ice cream trucks to drive through, which is what Mason and Arlo (Gooding) use to get Elvis away. Although Brynner and Co. have a host of high tech weaponry, fast motorbikes and sleek cars, they have trouble keeping up with a 30-year-old ice cream truck. Maybe the scene in which they installed afterburners on the truck got left on the cutting room floor.

Less than a minute after watching the ice cream truck go past, riders on 2 super fast bikes go after it. Hours later they will finally catch up, but Mason, a soda jerk, proves to have fighting skills superior to those of these military covert ops types. The director loves this part as it provides lots of opportunities for blowing up things like tanker trucks and creating demolition derby style accidents.

Brynner's people, besides being surprisingly bad shots, make one bad decision after another. And time and again, the old truck outruns their clearly faster vehicles.

Some of the stunts are fun. Watching Mason and Arlo, like BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, jump thousands of feet to the river below is exhilarating. In CHILL FACTOR they put them in a metal boat for the jump to slightly disguise the rip-off of another picture.

As the chase is on, the villains are on-line to their potential customers around the world, holding a $100,000,000 plus auction. Ah, the power of the Internet.

Poor Cuba Gooding, Jr., as he did in INSTINCT earlier this summer, plays one half of a strong two person lead in an otherwise preposterous and ridiculous movie. As Mason and Arlo yell and bicker with each other, there are a few nice laughs. Too bad their characters are stuck in such an otherwise awful movie.

"Quit limping around like that," an embarrassed Arlo tells Mason. "Excuse me, I've got a bullet in my leg," Mason barks back. Mildly humorous comedy, however, cannot makeup for such a ludicrous rehash of a movie.

CHILL FACTOR runs 1:42. It is rated R for violence and language and would be fine for teenagers who don't have squeamish stomachs.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com