A thriller centered on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the CDC to deal with the outbreak.
The bodies pile up until there’s no body-bags left, but the low-wattage performances and the underlying hysteria of the film never mesh, leaving an alarmist but shallow interpretation of the disaster film format.
Contagion is a brilliant film: swift, gripping and – unexpectedly – droll. But you will probably want to wash your hands when you get home.
A starkly effective ensemble drama which could well do for the sniffles what Jaws did for great whites.
A level-headed take on a topic that’s often an excuse for madness and melodrama. You’ll be engrossed and grossed-out, but may suspect there’s a ton of footage under quarantine until the Blu-ray.
For a good two-thirds it’s tense, terrifying and thought-provoking but the picture runs out of momentum and it never tells us how society continues to function while blithely tossing out staggering death tolls: 26 million at the last count.
As a piece of grisly entertainment it works.
Entertaining and spooky, but less than the sum of its parts.
When we come full circle and find out what occurred on Day 1, the sense of ironic resignation to globalisation’s stranglehold is more than a little maddening: it might be the first account of averted viral apocalypse where you slightly wish the bug won.
Disturbing flu plague drama is solid entertainment.
It never quite takes off.
Contagion hangs together perfectly well as a movie, though sometimes it looks like a mosaic of earnestly tense mini-dramas represented by the ensemble cast.
Needs a shot of emotion.
Plenty of slick, sick chills.
It's very watchable, in spite of some bum notes.
The script skips from the human cost of the pandemic to the scientific scramble without nailing either satisfactorily.
Contagion keeps mentioning the dangers and moral choices that could have given the story some tension, without engaging with any of them.
This is slick, watchable stuff performed by an all-star ensemble.
Without any discernible histrionics, it is utterly gripping.
What might at first appear as a painful form of cinematic scaremongering soon becomes a quite intriguing affair.
Contagion is the latest change in Steven Soderbergh's chameleon career
Contagion film is not far from the truth, warns virus scientist
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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