Oh, Hello there. Didn't see you come in. Please, have a seat. Yes right there. Next to the Doritos. What brings you by this lovely blog this evening? A movie review you say! Well, I'm flattered that you came to me for your critical movie analysis jollies! However, I have not written one as of late. Because I have very little time for anything other than rehearsal, (sometimes) eating, going to class, sleeping and crying. But I now have new impetus! For it is quite clear that my dear friend and fellow blogglet (This is it. It's happening. Fuck bloggers. We will not be silenced!) Shannon Ward is significantly more bust than I am, yet she has time to watch a movie and inform as to whether you have good taste or not.
So let us give her a round of applause! She has climbed out of the dusty book cellar into the blinding light of modern mediocre cinema! So please... enjoy.... SHANNON MOTHERFUCKING WARD.
I made it to the Roxy, bought a ticket for Contagion, and also a bottle of water.
The cashier scrutinized my ruined complexion, my sweat-greased ponytail, my denim jacket; “yeah,” she said. “You need it.”
Me and my denim jacket found a seat in the theatre and looked forward to seeing a movie which we had literally heard nothing about.
And then I see Gwenyth Paltrow’s face.
What? She’s in this?
Yeah, she is. And guess who else? Matt Damon. And Kate Winslet. And Laurence Fishburne. And Marion Cotillard. And Jude Law. And Bryan Cranston. And Elliot Gould,And (I swear I’m not shitting you here) Demetri Martin.
Why had I not heard of this?
Now, before you put down this paper and sprint pell-mell to the Roxy to see this, I need to tell you: It wasn’t worth the run.
That’s right my fellow movie-goers. This movie failed to deliver. What I wanted was a blockbuster, edge of your seat, action-packed science fiction movie and what I got was a thought-provoking commentary on human nature.
I know, right?
The basic gist of the movie is that a new unidentified virus is spreading fast throughout the world, creating an epidemic similar in proportion to the Black Death. The World Health Organization tries to find a vaccine, Jude Law tries to make a few bucks off of the rising hysteria, and I was fucking bored.
Honestly? I wanted more looting.
Grocery stores, banks, hospitals, daycares, high end pet grooming salons, you name it, I wanted it looted. But no, this movie had to take the high road and focus on the politics and social consequences of a world wide epidemic. In other words, there was minimal looting, and that is never a good sign.
I mean, after a long week of figuring out my schedule, applying for jobs, and surviving hurricanes, I just want to let loose a little. And by “letting loose” I mean “watching people die in interesting ways on a big screen”. And yes, a lot of people die in this movie but in lame, thought-provokey ways. Coughing, sweating, fainting, seizures, you know. Pretty standard. Couldn’t someone have their eyes fall out or a building explode or someone walk in front of a bus?
Oh wait, scratch that, someone totally walked in front of a bus.
So maybe this movie did have it’s merits. For the most part it was well acted,although I really can’t take anything Demetri Martin does very seriously. He was just really distracting. Demetri Martin dressed in one of those inflatable quarantine suits doing tests onRheses monkeys with a somber expression on his face is just hilarious to me, which is why I started laughing, and why the girl behind me got mad but come on lady you’ve been coughing through the whole thing, I think that’s a little bit more distracting when you’re stuck in a small crowded room watching a movie about a highly contagious, killer flu.
But though the movie was well acted, I didn’t get attached to any of the characters because there were just too many goddamn storylines! SPOILER ALERT Marion Cotillard gets kidnapped in the first ten minutes and then we don’t see her again until the very end of the movie! At that point I don’t fucking care about her anymore. END SPOILER ALERT. If they could have chosen a main character and followed them I probably would have been more upset if they died. Or at least more interested.
My main qualm is that I had to think too much during this movie. And normally I’m all one for thinking but when I’m at the movies I am just not in the mood.
So I recommend this movie to people who are interested in seeing how the world might react if we were faced with an epidemic of this nature, and to those who have always wondered what Gwenyth Paltrow looks like with her scalp cut open and folded over her face. I hope no one reading this identifies with the latter party.
So I definitely thought this movie could have been more entertaining, but I guess it was thought-provoking. Definitely not worth the run. I’ll give it a six out of ten. My denimjacket gave it a nine (although he’s biased because he loves Jude Law movies).
Oh and the soundtrack totally sucked.
I was going to have my guest write the link joke, but I forgot:
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