Saw the trailer for this before Captain America, and this line made me think this was the remake of The Birds that’s being made. That would be a different angle. But the remake isn’t until 2013 apparently.
This was the best line! I loved it. So realistic. I can totally see a paranoid military dude asking this question, completely missing the big picture.
I just saw this and enjoyed it a lot. I’ll wait to spoilerize it.
On the hand, there is the spoiler tag. I think I might ask away!
oh, don’t look unless you want to spoiler
What was up with the neighbors Matt Damon sees get executed in the middle of the night? They were what?–random targets, shot for their food? Why do you think we never see the dead bodies? Did I miss something?
Non-spoilery thoughts to follow.
Since today was my last day at my old job (starting a new job Monday) I left work early and caught a matinee of this. It’s… interesting. For a movie ostensibly about the end of the world, it moves at a pretty leisurely pace. I wouldn’t say it built up to a climax, more that you watched as things unfolded.
I’m really not sure how to classify this movie. You know those ensemble romance movies that usually come out around Christmas? The ones with 10 different stars, and 5 different plot lines? You go to it thinking it’s going to be packed with stars, but instead it turns out you see a bunch of vignettes, and because there are so many cast members in the movie, the story never sticks with one too terribly long. Contagion is the “thriller” version of that type of movie. Lots of big names, and there’s a lot of activity, and a lot going on, but there’s no real character development. You see Matt Damon… now let’s see what Jude Law is doing. Off to Larry Fishburne. Now let’s check in with Jennifer Ehle. Back to Jude… now Marion Cotillard… hey, what’s Kate Winslet doing? Elliot Gould, come on down!
The movie’s measured pace was a big contrast to all the trailers shown before the movie, most of which either made me want to gouge my eyes out due to how formulaic they were made (Mission Impossible, Sherlock Holmes, John Carter) or were incomprehensible (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
And I don’t get the disclaimer they put at the start of trailers anymore “Approved for appropriate audiences” … what the heck does that even mean?
Anyway, as far as Contagion goes, I liked it, but I can see why it’s out in the fall. It’s not your typical pyrotechnic blockbuster production. I guess it’s true that the world goes out with a whimper, not with a bang!
@Tim
my thoughts
Just a random illustration of how society was breaking down, though aside from the first scenes of Matt and his daughter at the grocery store and that scene, there wasn’t any real follow through to that theme
I really liked it a lot. I appreciated the fact that the movie didn’t focus one character’s drama, but instead documented the rise and fall of a great epidemic. It’s a disaster movie, like Towering Inferno or Poseidon Adventure. Soderbergh keeps his eye on the real story and I found it thrilling. I got lost in the different characters who all seemed so believable. For example, the homeland security dude from the trailer who completely misreads the threat and has to be pulled up short by the good doctor.
Wow, gross.
Thumbs marginally up. Great cast. Well directed. But ultimately the story was sort of “eh”. Part of it may be that I went in thinking this was an end-of-the-world flupocalypse movie, and it’s not. But overall I thought it was, I dunno, workmanlike. Everyone hits the expected beats, there are some great little scenes, lines, and shots, then everything is solved and the movie’s over. It was…solid. That’s about the best I can say for it.
I did enjoy it, particularly the first half or 2/3. The only thing that bugged me (some general spoilers, I suppose) is that it seemed a bit all over the place in terms of how bad things were. You’d have scenes of looting, unchecked fires, and the army sealing off cities, but then it was like the power was always on and nobody really seemed to be lacking for food or running water and there’s very little in the way of rioting or mass disobedience. Some streets were like deserted and full of uncollected trash but others looked pretty much normal. It just seemed like a weird juxtaposition and like the movie was fluctuating between whether this was “tipping over” (as one character put it) or not.
It did, however, cause me to recheck how much I have laid in for emergency supplies.
I think you hit the nail on the head here, Rywill - the real star of the movie is the disease!
And I agree about the unevenness of the bad things that were happening. I was sort of astounded at the scene where Matt Damon and his daughter try to get out of Illinois. They travel to the Wisconsin border (not that that’d do any good, realistically speaking, but they’re trying!). However, the border is sealed, and manned by troops, so they’re turned back. So in a stunning development… they go home!
That’s right… they just go home and continue living as they were before. There’s no panic, no trying to cross the border illegally because they’re desperate to get out of the area. They just turn around and go home.
And Matt & daughter continue to live in their suburban home, even though the grocery stores have been ransacked and the delivery of meals is spotty at best. But even though his neighbors have been gunned down by random violence, Matt and his daughter are just gonna keep hanging out. Heck, Matt never even gets too worked up about anything, really.
I liked it. The film was ruthlessly efficient, the first bodies hit the floor in the opening minutes and it’s all going to hell from there. None of the typical 30-minutes of setting up family schmaltz/predicaments/conflicts-that-get-happily-resolved by the end of the movie. And it didn’t resort to having to “dumb down” the scientific jargon for an audience stand-in.
And it had a crazy talented cast. Even the bit roles were full of awesome actors: John Hawkes, Jennifer Ehle, Brian Cranston, Elliott Gould, etc, etc.
DA SPOILER ALERT
I just wish they hadn’t left Marrion Cotillard’s arc just hanging like that? What happened to her? Where did she run off to? My guess is she sorta went Stockholm Syndrome and ran off to warn the village (and those little kids she was teaching), but you’d never know because she runs out of the airport and that’s the last we see of her.
I also did find it funny that during the Gwyneth autopsy that everyone around me squirmed uncomfortably when they sawed off her skull and peeled it back. A gazillion cop procedurals on TV, usually with a tidy morgue scene with a snarky medical examiner, every week, but, hey, who’d ever imagine autopsies actually involve carving bodies apart?
How hard is it to cross from Illinois to Wisconsin anyway?
— Alan
Some of the reviews have made a point of directly or indirectly referencing this. The issue seems to be that they are using a well known actor as the subject, as opposed to some generic extra we see most of the time.
That is really cool. Thanks for the link!
The movie was well done, but boring (in my opinion). Its the type of concept that is better done as a book, where you can detail the lives and impact of the storyline and give a more personal perspective from those going through the events. As a movie a lot of points are touched on as it rushes through, but without any lasting impact (outside of making me want to wash my hands more frequently).
Seen it. Didn’t want to touch anything after that. :p
They did a great job of not dumbing down the science (too much) for the audience and, without getting too nit-picky, appeared to be using the right equipment. For the general viewer, it’s going to look and seem pretty authentic; at least they treated the audience as somewhat intelligent.
I like that they didn’t make science or the corporate world or the blogger/journalist or any particular person out to be the “bad guy.” There were shades of gray everywhere and the enemy was the virus. The movie kept the focus on the reaction to the disease rather than shifting to the judgement of the players, and did it well by showing both the human side (lots of small bits and Matt Damon’s family) and the scientific side (CDC, WHO, independent lab) without lingering too long on any one part.
The movie was really one that was sort of steady in terms of emotion and excitement level. It didn’t build to a climactic tension-breaker and I think the flipping around between characters both helped the story (see above) and hindered developing an attachment to the personal and professional struggles these people were having.
Overall, it was well done. It’s not going to strike an emotional chord with many but an ensemble cast with an intelligent treatment is worth watching.
[Edit] Have to add: this isn’t an “action-thriller.” I wouldn’t consider anything about this movie “action” unless you count the couple of scenes of looting and some running as action.
I had one question about the movie, btw: Marion Cotillard’s character spends a vast amount of time and effort (hers, and other people’s) trying to figure out who the first person that had the virus is. Why? Who cares? The stuff the CDC was doing (trying to figure out what the virus’ heredity is, and how it functions when attacking human hosts) made a lot of sense to me as a layperson. I don’t understand how knowing who Patient Zero is helps you at all. You know it started somewhere around that casino; whether Gwenyth Paltrow gave it to the waiter, or vice-versa, who cares?
Maybe this movie is secretly about how dumb and inefficient the United Nations is.
OT: What is that from?
Very cool, thanks!
I got the impression from watching this that the filmmakers made a deliberate choice to not pursue the obvious path in this type of story, at every opportunity.
For example, at one point there is a fight over an ostensibly empty food truck. It appears an action scene is about to break out. Normally in this type of story you’d have either the crowd finding food and violently taking it or the food truck guards opening fire on the crowd or both. In this movie they somehow dodge that bullet and find a very passive way to resolve it- boo!
The thing that bothered me about the Marion Cotillard story is the ‘trade’. Not to spoil it, but if I have something of yours I’m holding as leverage to get something else from you, I’m not giving it back till AFTER I verify you’ve handed over the desired item.
I think Matt Damon’s character was all over the place in action and motivation but I think that was by design, not a flaw in writing. I think his character is not supposed to be the brightest bulb in the drawer.
All that said, I did like the movie overall. It reminded me of those docudramas I used to watch back in the day, stuff like Countdown to Looking Glass and Threads.
About patient zero, I thought finding that patient would give them a jump start on their research. Knowing the combo of Animal X/Animal Y was important to knowing how to create a workable vaccine wasn’t it?