Full Movie Reviews
Rating of
2.5/4
"Contagion" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 09/20/2012
A highly infectious and deadly virus rapidly becomes a pandemic threatening the lives of millions as a team of scientists desperately attempt to create a vaccine. This medical thriller from Steven Soderbergh has a similarly scientific feel to it to the likes of The Andromeda Strain as we follow the CSI-alikes through a maze of technical jargon in their labs while society disintegrates around them as the rioting populace succumbs to hysteria. These scenes are extremely effective and there's a lot of tension during the race against the clock to find the cure, which makes the fact that the weak eco-message that makes the "climax" to the story even more disappointing. It may have worked better if the entire film had been told in reverse order a-la Memento or Irreversible, but as it stands …
Rating of
2.5/4
95'S Outbreak is better
Lee - wrote on 08/13/2012
Well one way to scare the pants off everyone is to make a realistic "It could really happen" type thriller. this movie does one thing and that is make you think. I'm not a fan of this type of film by any means however i will say this is most different them most killer virus strain films out there! It's ultra realistic!!
An all star cast portray a wide assortment of charectors who either have the disease or do not with stand out performances from both Kate Winslet and Jude Law. I only gave this film 2- 1/2 out of 4 due to it being a tad depressing for my liking then again it is what it is. I see this film being constantly compared to Wolfgang Peterson's 95 virus film 'Outbreak' which is my favorite of the two as it had way more things going on in the storyline!
Rating of
3/4
Please Pass the Hand Sanitizer NOW!
MovieAddict - wrote on 03/15/2012
Contagion is an intense thriller drama about an epidemic that spreads over the globe. It starts on Day 2 which didn't really make any sense at first. You find out why at the very end though. With Steven Soderbergh as director and a host of talented actors it's a roller-coaster from the very first unsettling scene, right up until the last frame. The scares come from things that human beings encounter every day. Make note that this movie will make you think twice about what you touch and who you speak to.
Matt Damon is terrific as the doting father, and husband who discover more about his wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) than he wants to know in the wake of her horrifying death when she returns from a trip to Hong Kong, visibly sick and passes the infection to her young son. Another key character …
Rating of
2.5/4
Contagion review
Daniel Corleone - wrote on 01/02/2012
Beth Emhoff (Paltrow), wife of Mitch (Damon) dies from a certain disease. A virus is spread worldwide and Dr. Ellis Cheever (Fishburne) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tries to find a cure. Dr. Cheever asks Dr. Erin Mears to Minnesota to investigate. Alan Krumwied (Law) states on television that the CDC and World Health Organization kept the virus a secret and Day 1 only 2 people had it and it spread a billion in 3 months. Dr. Leonora Orantes (Cortillard) that the US was holding out the cure in certain countries. In emergency situations the picture depicts morality; social order and decency are disintegrated. The film was interesting but not as entertaining as his previous films. Contagion is a well researched film about how humanity can turn bad because of a …
Rating of
3.5/4
Contagion
Bizarro - wrote on 10/23/2011
Soderbergh obviously relishes doing something that very much contradicts his previous film. With Contagion, a brainy thriller centered on the global spread of a deadly disease, he does just that. And he succeeds brilliantly, resulting in a accurate and terrying experience of what could happen if a new strain of virus suddenly emerged without any seeming cure and the global mass-panic that would no doubtedly ensue.
Contagion, which boasts one of Soderbergh's usual stellar cast lists, including Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard and Gwyneth Paltrow, has something that usual Hollywood thrillers very rarely have, a scientifically accurate plotline.
Apparently, during the scriptwriting process, Soderbergh approached various scientists and disease …
Rating of
2.5/4
DAMN YOU, SODERBERGH
SIngli6 - wrote on 10/22/2011
How does he do it? How does Steven Soderbergh do it? How does he manage to turn a film with a great cast and a bloody terrifying premise into a piece of remediless tedium?! How, how, HOW?!! It's not as though he has to try very hard. The film, after all, is about a damned global pandemic! But Soderbergh, in all his independent American film sagacity, would much rather spend the majority of his allegedly terrifying parable of mother earth's diabolical revenge plot showing us static shots of people talking about the direr implications of a disease than actually showing us the blasted chaos. Not that I am adverse to listening to exchanges resplendent in scientific jargon that concern widespread death and pandemonium, but, seeing as this is a primarily VISUAL medium, it would be nice to …
Rating of
3/4
Germaphobes be warned....
trophywife - wrote on 09/19/2011
Here’s some well directed advice: If you have been diagnosed with OCD, or are a certified germaphobe, don’t see this movie. Just skip it. You’ll thank me for saving you from a complete and utter mental breakdown.
And, if you feel that you have any sort of OCD “tendencies”, be warned that this film will most likely nudge you right over that little precipice.
The Good: There’s nothing like a “worldwide epidemic with no cure” idea to fuel your fears -- and this movie does exactly that. For an almost 2 hour span, we follow the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. But it’s not just the mind boggling number of people dying that grabs your attention in this movie--it’s the panic that ensues. Imagine the desperation of grieving family members …
Rating of
3/4
Contagion - It Will Grow On You
Chris Kavan - wrote on 09/10/2011
While there are no shortage of films portraying the effects that a virus can have on humanity - everything from the zombie-esque 28 Days Later to the sci-fi-leaning Andromeda Strain and more down-to-earth Outbreak - Steven Soderbergh takes a different approach with Contagion. There are no heroics here - no chases or shootouts, no globe-spanning romance, no magic or myth - Contagion is all about keeping things real, and that's what makes it so effective.
When one of the movies biggest stars dies about ten minutes into the film, you know things are going to get grim. That would be Beth Emhoff - Gwyneth Paltrow - who has just returned home to Minneapolis from Hong Kong with a bad case of jet lag that turns out to be something much more dangerous. And she's not the only one - London, …
