Contagion

The plot’s pretty simple: there’s a virus wiping out humans like never before and we follow how it affects a small group of people and the world simultaneously.  There’s the average Joe and his wife (Matt Damon (The Legend of Bagger Vance) and Gwyneth Paltrow (The Pallbearer) respectively), a tabloid blogger (Jude Law (eXistenZ)), the head doctor from the CDC (Laurence Fishburne (Fled)), the doctor that he sends to assess the situation (Kate Winslet (Quills)) and some other people.  They each offer a different view of the epidemic and how they deal with it based on their circumstances, knowledge and resources.

But the biggest problem with Contagion is that it portrays what a deadly viral outbreak would look like too realistically.  That may sound really dumb but this is a film that could have used some more imagination in my opinion.  As the disease spreads people panic and there’s a race for a vaccine but the whole thing never gets too out of control.  The worst that happens is the local supermarket gets looted and there are some windows that get smashed.  Laurence Fishburne and his doctors know they’re up against a nasty bug but for the most part they keep cool and don’t act like it’s the end of the world.  And that’s what this apocalyptic picture was missing, the feeling that this could be the end.  I was waiting for tell tale signs but as the movie goes on the power never goes out, water isn’t an issue and communications don’t break down as everyone is still able to use their cell phones like normal.  I thought food was going to be a problem when they started shipping in MREs (Meal, Ready-to-Eat) from the army but everything must have been fine after that ‘cause it’s never brought up again.  The whole situation felt more like a big pain in the ass inconvenience than the end of days.  The virus didn’t produce gruesome deaths either which would have been a cool visual.  Instead the infected just get kinda pale, blotchy and sweaty and then they’re dead.  The filmmakers also missed the boat on giving the disease a bad ass sounding name like Toxi-Pocalypse, Death-Ease or Carni-Virus.     

The whole thing amounts to a blob of a movie.  There’s no plot point that carries all the way through the thing making it feel too disconnected.  Sure the search for a vaccine is something they’ll go back to periodically but because there are so many characters and mini stories wrapped up into one film nothing gets full attention.  I felt like I didn’t get to know these characters that well and as a result didn’t get that invested in them.  Most don’t have a ton of screen time except for Fishburne, I guess he’s our lead.  Matt Damon is in it a bunch but very little happens with his plot line so I would kinda forget about him when we weren’t seeing him.

Soderbergh shot this real well though as usual and he gets good performances out of his actors.  There’s a bunch of his trademarks in here like changing the setting frequently, having the film take place in different countries, announcing what country you’re in when the scene changes, Matt Damon, a big cast, having several stories occur at once and using an ambient/house score.  At times I was digging the music because it sounded like a way toned down Aphex Twin.

It’s inevitable that this picture is going to be compared to the 1995 thriller Outbreak starring Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., Rene Russo and directed by Wolfgang Petersen (Air Force One).  The overall plot is the same: there’s an epidemic spreading across the U.S. and these doctors need to find a cure before everyone’s wiped out.  And you know what?  I like Outbreak better except for the poster.  I mean just look at the fucking thing.  It doesn’t look exciting or tell you anything about the movie and that cropped out picture of the monkey looks like shit.  But the film itself was entertaining, thrilling and I actually felt like I went through something with that one.  I mean it’s really cheesy and not a timeless piece of cinema or anything but I found it to be pretty fun.  Hoffman busts his ass throughout the movie between trying to find the host that’s carrying the virus and butting heads with his superiors over how the epidemic should be handled and it all ends with a goddamn helicopter chase.  Contagion doesn’t offer much meat to sink your teeth into.  While I was watching it I thought to myself at one point, “when are things going to get really bad and spiral completely out of control?”  It                                                        never happened.

When it was all over this movie didn’t amount to very much and if you see it I think you’ll know what I’m talking about.  I’m not sure how well it went over with the audience I saw it with but as soon as the very first credit appeared on screen at the end, “Directed by Steven Soderbergh”, a guy behind me yelled out, “not impressed”.  But he doesn’t’ speak for everyone so I’m not going to assume that every person in the theater felt that way.  At the same time I also saw it with my sister who didn’t care for it either.  I think she had a pretty good analogy for this one and she said it’s like when you’re listening to a song for a little while and you’re waiting for it to go to a different part or change in some way but it doesn’t and winds up sticking with that same part the whole way through. 

Soderbergh didn’t go far enough.  Things should have gotten crazier with people having to fight for everything to survive, the disease should’ve handed out horrible grisly deaths, there were too many storylines (he should’ve focused on two instead of six or seven) and it was too damn reasonable.  I don’t want too much realism getting in the way of my apocalypse picture.

I’m personally not afraid of germs but if you do have mysophobia (fear of germs) then you might get something out of this.  Otherwise, if you still want to see a viral infection movie I would say check out Outbreak.