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Overall Rating : 6/10
Directed By : Steven Soderbergh
Marion Cotillard (Public Enemies)
Matt Damon (True Grit (2010) )
Laurence Fishburne (Predators)
Jude Law (Repo Men)
Supplied By : Warner Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : January. 11, 2012
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| PLOT A thriller centered on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the CDC to deal with the outbreak.
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THE REVIEW |
Director Steven Soderberg's CONTAGION, is a film that presents a scenario in which, us as a world deals with an epidemic involving a virus of unknown origin. Although the threat is global, the film takes a more prominent focus on how the threat effects North America. It all begins when wife and mother, Beth Emhoff, returns to her home in Minnesota from a business trip in Hong Kong. Beth returns home with strange flu-like symptoms, symptoms that soon see her turn deathly ill before the eyes of her husband, Mitch. It all comes to a head when Mitch is forced to rush his ill wife to the hospital, where she soon dies. Not only does this shock her family, but they also eventually find Beth and Mitch's young son in a similar state in which he also dies. Following the incidents involving the Emhoffs, the world is shocked when word of further infection in several states breaks, and with the CDC and several scientists clamoring to make some sense of it all, the unseen virus which effects both the respiratory and nervous system becomes much more widespread, thus creating a worldwide epidemic. If there is one thing that Director Steven Soderberg is good at, it is capturing realism and raw emotion, which we have seen from his works such as TRAFFIC and OCEAN'S ELEVEN. With CONTAGION, he does so again, in creating a realistic scenario, which which pits the survival of all mankind against a virus that happens to be foreign to us, not to mention the bodies of those infected. It's a virus that we have never dealt with, one, that has no cure, and kills at an alarming rate. Some viewers have complained that Soderberg here with CONTAGION, failed to build up the characters making them detailed enough to emotionally connect with them. While I must agree that the characters are not necessarily all that developed, I must disagree, with the notion that viewers are unable to connect with he characters. Instead of building the characters up on a personal level, the Director does instead expend great concentration on the development of the story being told. There is great detail being used making the story a very realistic one, as it is something that can occur any day now within our modern times. Going into this film, I wasn't all that jazzed about5 having to sit through it, I had expected the film to be something that would bore me with all of its technical jargon. But, I really have to give it to this film, and admit that I actually found myself kind of taken in by it. It's not exactly as boring as I once expected it to be, as the story progresses in a manner that keeps the story interesting. Like the majority of Soderberg's films, CONTAGION features a large ensemble cast, in which Soderberg seems to have a liking to working with regulars. This time around, Soderberg regular, Matt Damon has one of the lead roles as a father in Mitch Emhoff, who is suddenly widowed. Other stamdout performances come from Jude Law as an obsessed blogger named, Alan Krumwiede who things he holds the key to curing the disease, PUBLIC ENEMIES' Marion Cotillard, as Dr,, who is trying to sort it all out, and Laurence Fishburne, as CDC head, Dr. Ellis Cheever. Other names include, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hawkes, Kate Winslet and Bryan Cranston. Overall, CONTAGION is interesting and thought provoking, and while it may not be a thing of genius, it does beg the question, the always present, "What if?" I do not think that CONTAGION is a film that warrants multiple viewings, however, I definitely believe that it is one worth seeing, for its realistic structure. The picture quality on the Blu-Ray is amazingly crisp and up to par with what you'd expect from a modern film on the format. Extras include 3 different featurettes that further push the question of what if, what occurs in the film really happened. Personally, I did not find these featurettes all that interesting, especially when compared to the film itself, however you may think otherwise.
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GORE
METER |
2/10 No real gore, other then one scene involving an autopsy performed on a corpse. Besides that there are just various people showing signs of the various stages of the illness. But one must give credit to the makeup effects team, as they do have realistic effect.
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MUSICAL
SCORE | 4/10 Various types of scoring is used through out
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OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM |
As I said above, from this one, I expected boredom. However, as I sat watching I found myself getting more and more into it, and these types of films, usually aren't my type of thing. While some will disagree, I thought that that CONTAGION was well told - i'm not sure if it is 100% scientifically accurate or not, but who cares, it's a movie, and it wasn't awful. It's not a film you are likely to want to see again, but once again it is worth at least a view in my honest opinion, it's not that bad. Special Features include Three Behind-the-Scenes featurettes : - Contagion: How a Virus Changes the World - The Reality of Contagion - The Contagion Detectives
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STILLS |
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