Contagion

“2 out of 4 stars”

This is another review that I will call unbiased. Though it had been released a few years back, I hadn’t heard or seen any reviews and ratings on it.

And coincidentally from Soderbergh again! Which I didn’t know until the credits started rolling! I kinda got disappointed in myself for not knowing who the director was beforehand. But eh…I don’t care…I’m still a trivia god! :D

It starts with a virus being spread from Hong Kong through Gwyneth Paltrow, who brings it back to US. An epidemic starts and as the number of those who’ve contracted the disease rises and so does the death toll, chaos takes over the major metropolitans. The government thinks this might be an attack of swine flu but as evidence unfolds of the origins of it, everybody’s quarantined and their only hope is developing a vaccine which even if developed, will take 3 months to be manufactured and distributed worldwide to stop the virus from spreading, but we don’t know if they can make the vaccine in time…

This would be more suitable to be a TV movie. It is an OK movie for its genre but nothing we haven’t seen before. Actually a kind of movie we have seen a lot before! But without any moving story. You don’t care for the characters. There are so many story-lines and the leading role of the movie seems to be the virus!

I don’t know how they got to attract all these big movie stars, maybe by paying them a lot in hopes of it bringing in blockbuster type of money. Besides from Gwyneth Paltrow, you can see the names of Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Lawrence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Bryan Cranston,… to name  a few.

I waited for a twist right up until the end, thinking that might be the reason why they had accepted taking part in this movie. A unique script. Which never happened! Or maybe they thought since this is a Steven Soderbergh movie, it's going to be great no matter what. Which wasn't the case either.

I should probably take back what I said in the previous post, that a Soderbergh movie with many big stars is a must-see. But still, you'd get tempted to watch it, though your expectations might not be met. Also, many critics have given this movie at least one thumb up! Including Ebert who's given this movie a 3 star rating.

If you have some extra popcorn at your house that is going to be expired soon, some extra time on hand to kill, and no other movie to watch, you can watch this. Of course, it’s still better than so many movies. I wouldn’t have recommended this at all, even at the cost of your pop corn being expired, if it wasn’t OK enough to watch! But this wouldn’t be my first choice if I am in the mood for an excite-stimulating movie!