When I first saw the trailer for this germ-a-phobe apocalyptic mystery film, "Contagion," this was the conversation that I was having in my head: "Oh Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon...and there's Laurence Fishburne with Marion Cotillard. Wow it has Bryan Cranston too? This film has a lot of famous--Jude Law...Kate Winslet...wow!" Yes, wow is the best word to desrcibe my thoughts. In front of me I saw a cast of award winners/nominees who are trying to prevent a worldwide epidemic. Sounds pretty interesting to me. But do the A-lister's star power hold together the film?
"Contagion" begins with Day 2, just twenty-four hours after the unknown virus's birth. Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) isn't feeling too well on the plane ride back from Japan. And neither are the people she has came into contact with. Whether it's a waiter that has taken her glass, or a person who has shaken her hand, whoever has picked up Beth's DNA is getting sick...very sick. Soon after Beth arrives home to her husband Mitch (Damon) and son, she has a seizure, is taken to the hospital, and dies the next morning. Mitch arrives only to find his son dead and is taken into custody in order to quarantine him and diagnose the virus that is spreading through his family and throughout the world.
On the other side of things we have three doctors. Dr. Cheever (Fishburne) is a doctor at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention who is approached by the Department of Homeland Security. They believe that the worldwide disease is a bio weapon designed to put the world in a state of shock on Thanksgiving week. Dr. Cheever sends Dr. Mears (Winslit) to Minneapolis where Mitch lives to investigate the virus and attempt to quarantine the city. The third, Dr. Orantes (Cotillard), travels to Japan to find the source of the virus. Oh yeah and Jude Law plays a journalist who says to "not trust the system".
As you can see, there are a LOT of things going on in this film, and that is one of the flaws. The story is too big. Instead of focusing on a concrete story, the film focuses on several. There are several consequences to this. First, because the film focuses on seven different characters and stories, it is hard to remember all of what is going on and in some cases, the "main characters" can be forgotten. Second, it's like the filmmakers just decided to finish the stories of some characters and leave the fate of others up in the air. Several questions and plot points were never addressed. And the final and greatest problem is that because of the giant storyline, "Contagion" is void of emotion. How can I connect with a character and their story when they only take up one seventh of the film? Answer...I can't.
As with many "crisis is wiping out humanity" movies, "Contagion" starts off with a bang. It's quick, it's intense, and lots of people are dying. For the first hour, I was very into the film...the second hour, not so much. The film's second half drags and the terrible thing is that the ending is nothing special and quite anticlimactic.
The star power "Contagion" packs can't save the film from a bloated plot line and an unemotional ending and characters. And while the film may have tried to push messages of "don't trust the government" and "deforestation is bad", the only effect the film had on me was the slight hesitance to touch my face...and even that won't last long. I give the film one and a half stars out of four.
"Contagion" has a running time of 106 minutes and is rated PG-13 for disturbing content and some language.
