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Contagion

Starring: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, and Laurence Fishburne
Directed by: Steven Soderberg
Screenplay by: Scott Z. Burns

     If you watched the credits of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, then you would have seen that a disease spread over the entire planet right?  Contagion could easily be the longer version of that story.
     A new strain of bird flu has shown up in Hong Kong and has quickly spread to other parts of the world.  It's infecting people at an alarming rate, but nobody's really sure how fast it's spreading.
     So, while the entire world is getting the flu and many people are dying, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and the WHO (World Health Organization) begin to work in secret on growing the virus and attempt to create a vaccine, but this could be a long process, and many more people could die.
     A medical blogger named Alan Krumwiede claims that he's found the cure in a product called Forsythia.  He openly accuses the CDC of attempting to create its own vaccine so that it can profit from this devastating event.  So now politics becomes a part of the story and a whole bunch of other crazy stuff happens, but I don't want to spoil it.
     First off, while the whole idea for this story is interesting, but at the same time, scary because we all know that something like this is possible at any time of the year.  I can't really say that its an original idea because it isn't.  Movies like this only have two possible outcomes, either everybody dies, or everybody who survives gets cured and many people still die.  So, the story is pretty predictable.
     In terms of acting, it's not bad, but not great.  The actors deliver average performances.  This is probably because the perspective of the movie shifts between characters so often.
     The biggest problem I have with the film is that there isn't one central character around whom the story focuses.  Instead there's a few different main characters.  Contagion lacks story about the characters in the film, but creates a fully developed world.  I feel that there's too much emphasis on fully developing the world of the film, and not enough character development.  It's hard to get attached to any of the characters in the film.
     If you're one of those people who doesn't wash their hands after using the restroom, I would highly recommend that you see this film because you'll definitely want to wash your hands carefully after leaving the theater.  Even if you're a germaphobe, you'll still enjoy this film, but again, you'll probably want to wash your hands after seeing it.  Overall, it's entertaining, serious, and pretty good.
I'm giving Contagion a healthy grade of B+.

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