Watching a full-fledged plague roll in front of you really broadens your outlook. Contagion is yet another disaster flick, only this time from top-shelf director Steven Soderbergh, who knows how to achieve a slow burn toward the relatively believable dread of a global pandemic. Ready to curl up to a lot of lab coat and voiceover media “action” while human stories emerge in the underbrush?

Good thing we’ve got Matt Damon as the voice of reason, Marion Cotillard as a premier scientific researcher who becomes afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome, Kate Winslet as an aloof, no-nonsense Doc who gets her, er, hands dirty; and Jude Law as a muckraking cum fraud thorn-in-dispassionate-CDC-honcho-Lawrence Fishburne’s side. Without these assorted Oscar winners and nominees and Gwyeth Paltrow as the epidemic’s living catalyst, we might be left with a movie closer to just any disaster movie despite Soderbergh’s highly proficient touches of craftsmanship.

In case you’re wondering what the human base level, lowest common denominator in a time of crisis is, here’s your answer. The desperate victims literally trample upon each other to acquire the inevitable vaccine. There’s looting and lawlessness to rival Children of Men for sheer human susceptibility to avarice.

What do we learn? It’s not the first time: a 19th century scourge wiped out a full one percent of the earth’s population….Casual contact is deadly when it comes to a highly contagious disease: Soderbergh’s most effective moments embellish victim’s every cough and touch with amplified close-ups that would be comic were it not for their inherent terror. He makes it easy to believe the outbreak spreads this fast and so devastatingly wide.

Law’s character, a blogger initially denigrated for not possessing a “real” journalistic pedigree, forces the issue of the politics of government’s control in rationing information flow, and perhaps in colluding with the interests of drug companies to favor only cures that jibe with their financial interests. Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns muffle Law’s message with a twist of their own pointing to his own lack of credibility, equating misinformation spread through the internet with the larger depicted sins of a public gone bat-shit. Seems like a copout but it’s more an ironic complexity.

With high voltage art direction and sound and visual effects, Soderbergh make up for (barely) a general lack of emotion and overambitious spreading himself too thin with his multiple characters and their viewpoints. You won’t forget a particularly grisly scene with Paltrow. You might, however, forget most of this film by the next day. Except you’ll wash your hands more and avoid shaking hands for awhile. Scientists say this is one disaster that could really happen.

7 handshakes out of 10

Watching a full-fledged plague roll in front of you really broadens your outlook. Contagion is yet another disaster flick, only this time from top-shelf director Steven Soderbergh, who knows how to achieve a slow burn toward the relatively believable dread of a global pandemic. Ready to curl up to a lot of lab coat and voiceover media “action” while human stories emerge in the underbrush?

Good thing we’ve got Matt Damon as the voice of reason, Marion Cotillard as a premier scientific researcher who becomes afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome, Kate Winslet as an aloof, no-nonsense Doc who gets her, er, hands dirty; and Jude Law as a muckraking cum fraud thorn-in-dispassionate-CDC-honcho-Lawrence Fishburne’s side. Without these assorted Oscar winners and nominees and Gwyeth Paltrow as the epidemic’s living catalyst, we might be left with a movie closer to just any disaster movie despite Soderbergh’s highly proficient touches of craftsmanship.

In case you’re wondering what the human base level, lowest common denominator in a time of crisis is, here’s your answer. The desperate victims literally trample upon each other to acquire the inevitable vaccine. There’s looting and lawlessness to rival Children of Men for sheer human susceptibility to avarice.

What do we learn? It’s not the first time: a 19th century scourge wiped out a full one percent of the earth’s population….Casual contact is deadly when it comes to a highly contagious disease: Soderbergh’s most effective moments embellish victim’s every cough and touch with amplified close-ups that would be comic were it not for their inherent terror. He makes it easy to believe the outbreak spreads this fast and so devastatingly wide.

Law’s character, a blogger initially denigrated for not possessing a “real” journalistic pedigree, forces the issue of the politics of government’s control in rationing information flow, and perhaps in colluding with the interests of drug companies to favor only cures that jibe with their financial interests. Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns muffle Law’s message with a twist of their own pointing to his own lack of credibility, equating misinformation spread through the internet with the larger depicted sins of a public gone bat-shit. Seems like a copout but it’s more an ironic complexity.

With high voltage art direction and sound and visual effects, Soderbergh make up for (barely) a general lack of emotion and overambitious spreading himself too thin with his multiple characters and their viewpoints. You won’t forget a particularly grisly scene with Paltrow. You might, however, forget most of this film by the next day. Except you’ll wash your hands more and avoid shaking hands for awhile. Scientists say this is one disaster that could really happen.

7 handshakes out of 10