Contagion

Saw Contagion, and it is a mystery to me why reviews have been so positive. A dull scare-tactics film presenting what would happen if an extremely deadly virus spread from Hong Kong around the world, it paraded famous faces in front of the camera in a turgid miasma of unsatisfying stories. From Kate Winslet to Matt Damon, from Gwyneth Paltrow agreeing to be in about three scenes, including one where her head is opened to Jude Law doing an increasingly iffy Australian accent, from the girl who was Lizzie Bennett in the old Pride and Prejudice series now looking oddly like Sigourney Weaver at the right angles to the odd appearances of two famous sitcom dads in jarringly serious roles (Elliott Gould, the Gellers’ father in Friends and Bryan Cranston from Malcolm in the Middle), we get fed multiple stories with excellent research and science behind them, almost all ultimately undermined by mawkishness and sensationalism. It’s interesting to see a researcher taken captive in China to cover up the epidemic’s origins; it’s not interesting to see her with Stockholm Syndrome. It’s interesting to see the husband of the first US victim; it’s not interesting to see refugee camp situations coupled with a horrible climactic ‘prom’ scene. It’s interesting to see a researcher working on a vaccine; seeing her heroically become the first human test subject is incredibly cheesy. It’s interesting to see a blogger cause a stir by faking a recovery on a herb and causing riots; police sting operations and bail donated online is going too far. And none of it manages to hold the attention.