Review of Contagion (2011) by Tyler R — 19 Sep 2012
Disease epidemic films are a dime a dozen, well, the good ones are. Most of the ones that are released tend to be horror films. The trouble is, these types of films either go for the horror and jump scares, or they sacrifice all the style and base it solely on substance, or vice versa.
"Contagion" manages to be the one that manages to balance style with the substance. The story is a particulary interesting one: A new strain of bacteria manages to make its way from Asia across the globe, wiping out thousands upon thousands of people.
The film tells three stories: The story of a man struggling to keep his family alive, a group trying to fix everything at the CDC, and a reporter who is trying to spread the truth. Each story is handled with an equal amount of care, so there isn't one story that suffers at the expense of the others.
A good thing, too, is that all three manage to converge in a neatly presented way. The acting is top notch from all. Matt Damon plays the grieving father perfectly, where Laurence Fishburne plays the CDC head with a troubled past, which is also done really well.
I can't really pinpoint any weaknesses of the film, with the exception that I wish it would have shown a more gradual degradation of the human race instead of a statistic of one low number of deaths, then jump ahead a couple months to show a drastically larger death toll.
Other than that, it is a solid film that really makes you think twice before you shake someone's hand.
This review of Contagion (2011) was written by Tyler R on 19 Sep 2012.
Contagion has generally received positive reviews.
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