Review of Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011) by Robert B — 28 Mar 2012

Quarantine 2: Terminal (John Pogue, 2011).

What was it, exactly, that told me that watching Quarantine 2: Terminal was going to be a good idea in any possible way? What kept me watching it when I realized it wasn't going to be a remake of Paco Plaza's sequel to the original film, [REC] 2? (Which is actually pretty good-certainly better than this.) Let's see: you have a first-time director who is best-known for writing the screenplay of the forgettable teen thriller The Skulls over a decade ago, none of the original cast returning (though to be fair, that would have been kind of difficult-Plaza pulled it off, however), and a script that... okay, yes, it really is Outbreak on a Plane. That a movie already exists with that subtitle does not seem to have fazed anyone involved with this production one bit. Oh, and did I mention Marcus Koch (responsible for the execrable 100 Tears) was involved with the effects crew? By the time I got to the end of the credits, I was stunned-stunned, I tell you-not to see Brain Damage Films listed with a production credit. This monstrosity is right up their alley.

Plot: the virus from the original Quarantine finds its way onto a plane, which makes an emergency landing, after which some of the survivors and a helpful airport employee find themselves quarantined in an abandoned airport terminal. I'd tell you more about said survivors, but does it really matter? They're either entirely interchangeable or thin stereotypes you know are destined to get killed by the ever-increasing number of the infected.

Yep, that's it. There's no attempt to do anything to extend the idea in any way. For that matter, there's not even an attempt to make a movie that might stand up to the original (which, while completely unnecessary, was at least one of the more watchable Hollywood remakes of foreign horror films in recent memory); there are no characters in this script who even manage two-dimensionality, much less three. There is little attempt to build suspense (I get the feeling Pogue's idea of building suspense is the flinging of red herrings at you in the beginning as you try to figure out, if you actually care, which of the sick people boarding the plane has the virus and which just have colds), and once all hell breaks loose, the script doesn't even really try to make the infected into jump-enablers. And, of course, every major "twist" during the last half-hour is predictable pretty much from the beginning of the film.

On second thought, you can use this (just as in the literary world you can use Jodi Picoult's awful novel My Sister's Keeper) as an acid test for movie compatibility with acquaintances: if anyone didn't see the identity of the final girl, the identity of the virus carrier, etc. coming before its revelation, this is not someone you have movie acumen in common with. **.