When Contagion was released in 2011, it was considered a horror film, more a flight of fancy than anything else. It wasn’t a great box office winner. But in 2019 all of that changed as we lived through the pandemic that was mere science fiction before then. Looking back at the film, it becomes a game of what they eerily got right and what was far off the mark. Much of the world disaster element, thankfully, never came through, but in hindsight it is quite surreal the things the film did get right. The idea of a therapy drug possibly being downplayed by the government and an internet guy trying to drive those discords. The fear of a quickly-created vax also looks very much like what is still playing out in the world today. The film depicted a nasal vax that I wish had been true. The film avoided much of the political fallout, but you really must see this film in a post-COVID world.
Slick, compelling, and gripping, Contagion uses the fright brought on by past outbreaks of deadly virus attacks around the world to punch home a ‘what if’ plot that succeeds in scaring the pants off accepting moviegoers. The recognizable actors save the plot from being hard to follow as it jumps from country to country in this thriller that ‘could actually happen’.
Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns home from a trip with flu-like symptoms, only to die a short time later after being rushed to a local hospital. The doctors are puzzled as to the cause, her husband Thomas (Matt Damon) distraught that they could do nothing for her. On the other side of the world and in other US states the airborne and contact virus is spreading. Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) has a blog on the web that exposes government cover-ups, and his millions of followers are starting to get scared that the virus will be devastating, causing panic in the streets.
Trying to control and find a cure for the fast-moving disease, Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet) has immersed mind and body in finding how the virus got started and where it’s spreading. Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne), head of the US health division, has been pushing hard on his scientists to get a vaccine to stop the epidemic. When all their work starts to break down due to effects of the killer germ, the pressure cooker starts to blow. Will Mears, Cheever, and their scientists succeed, or will a cure be too late?
I enjoy the way director Steven Soderbergh moves the story along at a fast clip much like the spreading of his virus. Moving in and out of different countries where he starts stories connected to the outbreak, he adds the devastation that has been set upon the people along with it. His most compelling story surrounds the Emhoffs, who we get close to and more involved with due to the erosion of this modern-day American family unit.
His makeup and effects are very realistic, and what I would envision an infected person would look like. Soderbergh brings the virus up close, shows the damaging effects, and makes it very convincingly scary.
His actors do a terrific job in their roles, especially Winslet, whose character has to take the lead on getting close to the illness while fending it off her own body. Her scenes show the tragic effects that someone would have if they contracted the virus. You can feel her determination on getting to the root cause while sacrificing herself to save the world.
Video
Contagion is presented in a somewhat modified 1.78:1 aspect ratio instead of its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The ultra-high-definition image presentation is arrived at with an HEVC codec at an average of 75 mbps that often winds its way to over 100. The ultra-high-definition image presentation is quite first rate even if it’s from a 2K digital source and not a “camera negative” as the box art proclaims. Still it’s an impressive transfer that delivers on pretty much every level. There’s an almost hyper-reality at play here that makes the film a bit more creepy than I remembered it. Of course, that has a lot to do with the hindsight of a real pandemic. Colors are spot-on reference, and the boost from the HDR makes them vibrant and alive. Contrast gets as much of a boost, and it’s the rather disturbing detail that makes the most impact. The sickly patients give stunning depth and detail, and the consequences of the film’s premise are more than a little brutal. Soderbergh is famous for his use of color filters, and it’s all accurately reproduced with no misguided effort to “normalize” the images. A first-class image presentation, to be sure.
Audio
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is pretty much in line with that of the earlier Blu-ray release. No Atmos here, so there’s just the slightest increase in sub levels, but pretty much what we already had. That means it’s all is mostly here to serve the dialog. There are a few useful moments that help one to enter into this hectic but rather bleak world. I’d say the audio presentation is best when it works at minimalism. It’s often what is not there that creates effective atmosphere.
Special Features
The extras are found one on each disc with various compiled audio commentaries.
Evil Lost & Found: (17:05) This 2008 feature talks mostly about the memo and the reconstructed version of the film.
Bringing Evil To Life: (20:59) This feature is more a historical look behind the scenes and also touches on the reconstructed film.
Contagion – How A Virus Changed The World: (1:59) I half expected some new feature to tie in with COVID, but sadly there are no new features, and this is merely the animated PSA-styled feature from the Blu-ray.
Final Thoughts:
Contagion does have a few drawbacks that keep it from being an exceptional movie. Other movies of this ilk including Outbreak, 28 Days Later/26 Weeks Later, Quarantine, The Happening, The Andromeda Strain, and Contagion 2001 to name a few have been released. And, even though this Contagion had me on the edge of my seat at times, it came up with a resolve all too quickly for my liking.
Parts of this review were written by Gino Sassani
