Metacritic Film

Chill Factor

Starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Skeet Ulrich

MPAA RATING: R for for violence and language

Warner Brothers
Action  |  Adventure  |  Comedy  |  Suspense/Thriller
101 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters September 1, 1999

Ten years after a military operation named ?Elvis? goes wrong, a volatile weapon is entrusted to an ice cream truck driver (Gooding) and a drifter (Ulrich) who are determined to keep it cold and out of the wrong hands.

WRITTEN BY
Drew Gitlin
Mike Cheda

DIRECTED BY
Hugh Johnson

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

33 / 100

Critic Reviews

75 Baltimore Sun Milton Kent
It's the performances of Ulrich and Gooding, in particular, that lift Chill Factor out of the derivative. Gooding possesses so much boundless energy that he practically dares you not to care, not to get involved, not to root for his success.
75 Chicago Tribune
It's one of those movies that are unfortunately so technically well done, it's hard to tune out on the senseless story.
50 New York Daily News Ron Givens
Most of the action revolves around Ulrich's character, and the center cannot hold our interest.
50 Chicago Sun-Times
There are a lot of logical gaps in this movie.
50 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Neither (Gooding nor Ulrich) has the distincitve spark of an action hero, and their Butch and Sundance repartee falls so consistently flat that you end up feeling a little embarrassed for them.
50 New York Post Rod Dreher
A ho-hummer of a "Speed" knockoff that will leave most audiences cold.
40 Chicago Reader
The stunt work is pretty good, the brain work close to nonexistent.
40 Film.com
Instantly disposable ...Gooding appears tobe losing the momentum of his Jerry Maguire Oscar win two years ago.
40 The New York Times
A mechanically efficient chase-by-numbers movie.
40 TV Guide
None of this is especially funny, nor is it particularly exhilarating; at best it's throwaway entertainment.
40 Salon.com
A movie that wants to be "Speed" so badly that it runs roughshod over the essentials, including a decent script.
40 Film.com
Isn't a bad action movie -- it's just an utterly forgettable one.
40 LA Weekly
These bantering would-be heroes mostly live at the tops of their voices.
38 Charlotte Observer
If you're the kind of person who goes to the movies primarily to watch faces melt to pulp, you won't be disappointed.
38 USA Today
A substandard ebony-and-ivory buddy pic.
30 Los Angeles Times
Melts swiftly...don't expect a shred of credibility.
30 Washington Post
An irredeemably transparent... DIRECT RIPPING OFF OF "SPEED."
30 Variety
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.
28 Mr. Showbiz
Skeet Ulrich continues to disappoint in one high-profile project after another.
25 San Francisco Chronicle
This poor excuse for a thriller turns, with a great crunching of gears, into a mess of a buddy comedy. Either way, it misfires.
25 Entertainment Weekly
God-awful?Gooding screams out lines like ''I'm about to get in yo' ass like last year's underwear!''
25 Boston Globe
Gooding plays the worst role I've ever seen him play in a movie...he perpetuates a kind of black stereotype that should have become history years ago.
20 Newsweek Jeremy Caplan
About as bad as it gets?a thrill-less "Speed" wannabe.
20 TNT RoughCut Matt Kelsey
"Speed" with a thermometer, only a whole lot worse.
10 Dallas Observer
As worthless a piece of garbage as we've seen this year.

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