Contagion Movie Review

With a cast full of Oscar hall-of-famers one would think Contagion would live up to its star-studded cast, yet it falls short. Contagion, a thinking man’s horror film, “follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving epidemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. At the same time, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart.”
With a close up of Gwyneth Paltrow’s coughing face we begin the foreboding journey of a deadly virus, MEV-1. The camera zooms out and we see Beth (Paltrow) looking pale and clammy, showing no regret for her indiscretion, which causes the soon to be worldwide epidemic. This indiscretion occurs when Beth travels to Hong Kong for business and takes a slight detour on her way home, a booty call in Chicago. Beth believes she is suffering from a bad case of jet lag, but little to her knowledge she is really suffering from a virus that will kill more people than the YouTube sensation “Fred” killed brain cells. Upon her arrival home to Minneapolis, after declining into a disturbing mouth foaming seizure, the cheating trollop dies. The autopsy sports an IMAX worthy view of her scalp being pulled back to expose a brain obliterated by the virus MEV-1. Upon dissection the coroner says, “Oh my God, should I call someone?” to which his assistant says, “Call everyone.”
Millions of other people soon follow Beth’s crude death. Her scraggly looking husband, Mitch, played by Matt Damon, remains unaffected by the virus due to his immunity. Contagion, unlike other movies, keeps the hero, Damon, oddly detached from the viewers. The director, Steven Soderbergh, decided to keep Damon out of the minimal action in the movie by immediately putting him into quarantine. This automatically dismisses any possibility of suspense, no finding out at the last minute if he makes it or not. Mitch takes his daughter (Anna