Contagion, directed by Stephen Soderburg

Hey Guys, welcome back from the 4th week in Computer Programming! Yesterday we watch a series of Ted videos covering a wide range of technology related subjects. One of my favorites was when this software developer figured out how to create your own interactive whiteboard using only a Wii remote and a pen. He then extended his concept to make a computer screen respond to the movements of a persons head when wearing special glasses, making the image on the computer appear to be 3 dimensional. To check out these videos go to Ted.com, but in the mean time I have a review of a brand new movie (still in theaters if you wanna see it). This weeks movie is:

Contagion, directed by Stephen Soderburg

This movie just came out on September 9th. Directed by Stephen Soderburg, Contagion is a sci-fi thriller about the massive spread of a lethal virus and the CDC agents who are tasked with controlling it. It also fallows a father who lost the majority of his family to the virus and a lying blogger who is determined to make a fortune off of this epidemic.

First off I want to say that this movie had it's highs and lows. I'll begin with the highs:

To start, I absolutely loved the ways that the camera drew attention to all of the things that the characters touched without even realizing it. The frame would linger on every door handle, glass of water or handshake that occurred in the beginning of the movie. I was sad to see this go, because after about the first half hour it stopped following peoples point of contacts, which I would have like to see continue throughout the film.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Another thing that I really enjoyed was how the movie seemed to take into consideration the different reactions that different people would have in the face of a massively lethal plague. It talks about the father, who's wife and son are killed by disease in the very beginning and who goes to extreme extents to keep his daughter from being exposed. It talked about the CDC agent who wouldn't stop working until she found a cure, and was even willing to test the experimental drugs on herself to speed up the process of human trials. The corrupt and greedy blogger, who pretended to find a cure and sold it for millions of dollars. Even the people who kidnapped another CDC agent and held her as a hostage, demanding enough vaccine for their entire village, and the hostage who even after she was freed, returned to the village again to voluntarily become their hostage. The list goes on and on, and I was really impressed by the amount of thought that the writer (Scott Z. Burns) put into it.

On the other side, I think that Soderburg could have done more. Contagion, contrary to advertisement, is not a thriller movie (which by no means is a bad thing). Instead, it is a slow, creeping and meticulous film about the widespread death of a deadly virus. I for one appreciated this unusual approach to a global catastrophe such as this. It was a welcomed relief to all of the pumped up action in most modern movies. I do, however, think that Soderburg could have made it slightly darker. Don't get me wrong, this movie was in many ways disturbing, but I think that the death of millions of people across the globe deserves something a little more than that. I would have liked for him to put more emphasis on the sheer number of people that died, and what that would mean for the survivors post-vaccine.

Which brings me to my next and final point; the ending. To be honest, I thought that the ending was the worst part of this movie. I found it to be anticlimactic in too many ways. It ends after a cure is found and distributed to the masses by going back to the beginning, showing the origin of the disease. I did enjoy how ironically simple the creation of this elusive, killing virus was, but I did not think that it was an appropriate ending for this title. I think that something more like people rebuilding society after the death of a large portion of the worlds population would have suited this movie better. This ending left me thinking, now what? I think the audience deserved more than that.

Overall I thought that this movie was entertaining and worth seeing, though by no means a flawless film. After a lot of thinking I think I would give Contagion a 7.9 because of the creative story and let down of an ending.

This has been a review of Contagion, directed by Stephen Soderburg, reviewed by Severin-the some-what informed movie critic. Severin signing off. Stay safe America, and keep watching movies.