November 4, 2011
The trailer, of course, paints this as a terrifying blockbuster, but in fact it is a bit more thoughtful and interesting than that. It's about human interactions and complicated relationships, rather than about an impersonal disaster. We get to witness a bit of self-sacrifice and quite a lot of self-interest, which is probably a fair reflection of how such an epidemic would pan out in the real world.
Laurence Fishburne has no easy red or blue pills to hand out here, and is faced with some difficult and convincing moral decisions, as an acceptable face of authority and wisdom in a worldwide crisis. And I don't suppose we'll ever get to see just what was going on in Gwyneth Paltrow's head.
That said, we do get some contentious representations of the world here. We learn (as if we need be told!) that everything 'on the internet' is suspect and many of its denizens very corrupt; we learn that homeopathy is a Very Bad Idea and that massively resourced drug companies are humanity's only hope; there's a little bit of societal breakdown - how could there not be? - but the good characters remain good, the dubious ones remain dubious; and we are sent away with a little bit of an environmentalist message, just in case we missed it earlier on.
Overall we thought it was quite strong and very enjoyable, and sparked a bit of a discussion on the issues and its realism. And it was interesting to see in the gent's afterwards, how many people were scrubbing their hands with unwonted care and attention after exiting the film...
Laurence Fishburne has no easy red or blue pills to hand out here, and is faced with some difficult and convincing moral decisions, as an acceptable face of authority and wisdom in a worldwide crisis. And I don't suppose we'll ever get to see just what was going on in Gwyneth Paltrow's head.
That said, we do get some contentious representations of the world here. We learn (as if we need be told!) that everything 'on the internet' is suspect and many of its denizens very corrupt; we learn that homeopathy is a Very Bad Idea and that massively resourced drug companies are humanity's only hope; there's a little bit of societal breakdown - how could there not be? - but the good characters remain good, the dubious ones remain dubious; and we are sent away with a little bit of an environmentalist message, just in case we missed it earlier on.
Overall we thought it was quite strong and very enjoyable, and sparked a bit of a discussion on the issues and its realism. And it was interesting to see in the gent's afterwards, how many people were scrubbing their hands with unwonted care and attention after exiting the film...
