Movie Review - Contagion 4/10

I watched this movie last night. I wasn't impressed. It didn't have any of the elements of a story that grip you, have that wow factor, or impressive storytelling. It was basically a two hour commercial telling you to wash your hands.

They loaded the cast with Gwen Paltrow, matt damon, morphious, and jude law. But they jumped back and forth between all of them, each telling a mini story of what they are doing while this crisis is happening. And the crisis is, bird flu.

1. People start getting sick.
2. It spreads across the world.
3. Millions die.
4. Scientists find a cure.
5. Cure is distributed.
6. End Movie.

Thats what happened. It might as well have been a pbs special or a scifi budget movie. There were so many parts of the movie that didnt help to drive the movie forward at all and were just there to add filler. Matt Damon's wife cheats on him while she has a layover in Chicago. You find out about it later, he gets upset cause he has to hear about it from the CDC because she is dead.....and...and...ok switch scene.

Lawrence Fishburn tells a friend of his to get out of the city, but a reporter gets wind of it and calls him out on national tv. Washington is going to investigate. No conclusion.

Jude Law makes a lot of money by blogging about different drugs and then investing in them. He gets arrested and then gets out on bail. No conclusion.

Some lady gets taken hostage by the Chinese and they trade her for vaccine. She lives there for a week and starts to like the kids there. Turns out the vaccine they trade her for is a placebo and when she finds out about it she gets upset and runs through an airport. End scene, no conclusion.

Once Matt Damons daughters boyfriend gets a vaccine, they have a mini prom in their living room because everyone at school is dead. I guess prom makes it all better.

A good 20 minutes of the movie, spruced throughout the film, is this electronica music showing scenes of empty streets full of garbage, empty hallways and airports.

At the end, the government lines everyone up at a football statium and distributes the drugs. Then it shows how it all started.

If i read this script as a teacher, i would give it a B, because an 8th grader wrote it. The are human elements in the movie but you could have just left them out and it would have been the same movie. The movie leaves you asking for more, not from the story but from the 4-5 different stories that they follow and never really conclude.

Lousy movie.
Skip it.

Bugsy.