Contagion is about a group of people who must deal with the spread and containment of a highly contagious disease. Based on that statement you could probably guess what might happen. Sick people, a search for the cure, and widespread panic. Contagion is exactly what you think it is. Not to say that's bad, but I was not surprised by anything I saw.
The disease starts in Hong Kong, from there it is carried by Gwyneth Paltrow back to the states where she and her son die within a day or so. Her husband Matt Damon, immune to the disease, is left to take care of himself and his daughter.
Meanwhile Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, and a few other major players are notified of numerous deaths happening around the world. The disease is spreading quickly, and the Center for Disease Control must find a vaccination and keep the public calm.
Jude Law a conspiracy blogger/journalist broke the story first. He questions if the CDC is really trying to help. He finds a medicine that he believes cures the disease, and spreads the word. As millions become affected chaos breaks out, road blocks are set up, and the people go nuts.
Soderbergh directed an all star cast. Scott Burns wrote a fairly smart script. The movie was well put together and entertaining enough, but nothing more than you'd expect. I wish Soderbergh would have gotten a little more experimental, maybe tinted the movie red like he did with Traffic. Well obviously not that, but something along those lines. It seems like disease outbreak movies can go in one of two directions. An epidemic occurs and everyone turns into flesh eating zombies Aka 28 days later & I am Legend. Or an epidemic probably stemming from an animal becomes widespread, and the government works to contain the disease and the world seemingly goes ape shit Aka Outbreak.
I honestly felt like Contagion was too predictable and brought in tons of characters the movie couldn't devote enough time to explore. John Hawkes who I loved in Winter's Bone, plays a Janitor who shows up only once in each act of the movie, his character seemed compelling, but was pretty much wasted. The movie somewhat explored the idea that the government and CDC took care of their own before the average person. Hawkes character could have been used to show the struggles and desperation of a lower income individual taking care of his family during this epidemic.
Winslet and Cotillard were intriguing as well, but are never really explored. They came and went without us really knowing anything about them. I completely forgot about Cotillard until they mildly tie up her story near the end. I think this movie could have benefited from chopping off some of the extra meat. There were probably 7 or 8 main characters introduced, and only 2 or 3 were given the proper time to develop. Contagion tried to be this massive story about all these different people, but it just couldn't be done in 100 minutes.
For this movie to work, they were really gonna have to get us involved with these characters. So when they cry, we cry. When they are angry, we get angry, and so on. They basically just crapped on Matt Damon's character the whole movie, and by the end, sure I felt bad for him, but I wasn't really upset. His wife was cheating on him, he couldn't give his family a proper funeral, and he was stuck inside with no food protecting his daughter for months. I was more like, "jesus christ" cut this guy a break. You waited for some kind of reprieve, but what they gave him was pretty unsatisfying.
On the positive side, I always say if I can finish a movie in one sitting it was pretty good. And like I said the cast was impressive. Matt Damon is a great actor and he did what he could with the wiggle room he was given. He really only had two key emotional scenes, hearing his wife has died and dealing with it at the end, both were good.
I really did like contagion, it just didn't add anything to the genre. If you're going to make a movie on a topic that's already been explored, you have to find a unique way to tell the story. This movie just rang repetition in my ears, and it'll quickly be forgotten.
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