So to prevent spoilers from the show to unknowingly creep into your minds through your eyes, this is the synopsis of the show directly from wikipedia.
Contagion follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving pandemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. As the virus spreads around the world, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart.NOTE: Basically the movie will be reviewed according to some criteria that I got from this site for the lack of any other way I know how to do a review. Basically I was thinking to review the movie specifically for the genre i.e if its an action movie, I should not put too much emphasis on storyline, then I thought about it and decided that even if you want to make a action movie, you could always make your action movie have a coherent story line to add immersiveness and attachment to the characters. I do realise that certain genres might not emphasize on those characteristics, but still there can be movies that score better on those criteria and hence it should remain to act as a differentiation factor.
Plot (Storyline)
The premise of the movie is pretty simple, an outbreak of virus and the effect it has on the world in general. You will get to see the things that happen from the eyes of many people, mainly doctors and the people that were first affected. This movie starts off already with the infection in place and follows the trail of people who are affected by the virus in one way or another. People who can appreciate this movie are people who can identify this
So can you? What is this!??! Well you will know when you watch the movie, but you might not understand. Thats my advice to you. Also another piece of warning to you is that this show is under the genre of thriller, and not under genres of horror and action. So if you go into this movie expecting to be shocked and see lotsa fighting, killing, zombie infestation, monster hunting anything with semblance to a action movie, be prepared to be disappointed.
This is a movie that thrills you only by immersing you into the perspective of the people, and make you wonder if this is what will indeed happen in the real world and how you will react. In fact, if you change the disease to some disease then happened recently, you can easily view this movie as a documentary of what would have happened should a cure not have been found as fast as it did in reality.
That being said, I would feel that this is actually a bit more realistic as nothing really outlandish happens in the movie. There is no mass destruction of cities to prevent the disease from spreading like you would see in a resident evil film. Theres just a lot of discussion, and seeing how people will start to fend for themselves. Hence if you have a mindset to experience what could possibly be the more real, down to earth and self seeking reaction of the people affected by a disease, this is the movie for you.
Character
There are plenty of characters in this show. Like I said above, if you have the willingness to put yourselves in the shoes of the characters then you will be able to identify with them and feel and understand why they react in the way they do. There are so many characters in this show that its really pretty incorrect to say there is a star of the show. Just like in real life, in a real epidemic, its not gonna be a super genius scientist that saves the world all by himself, but rather through research and help from all his friends.
That being said, because there are so many characters, if you are unable to identify and feel for the characters, the movie is going to be pretty bland for you because like what i said earlier, there is almost zero action in this movie. The only excitement you can get is if you keep your mind active and wonder oh would I be doing this, would people really do this, how will I react, what if it was me?
On the plus side, there are also characters from other parts of the world that adds a bit more global feel to the epidemic. You hence can see certain national and cultural views and reactions to the same problem if you really look hard enough.
Cinematography (Diction)
Now over here there is a slight issue that I have with the show. There is a lot of perspective changes in the movie. One moment we are looking at the family, next we are looking at some doctor, next we are in the life of that doctors wife, suddenly we are in Hong Kong, then we are thrown into the WHO. So that is merely a small number of perspectives that we will experience throughout the movie.
Its was probably the intent of the director to show how all people from all over and all status and all backgrounds react to a contagion but there are times where the people look similar, or suddenly we get thrown into the perspective of someone who was merely in the background of another person's part earlier.
I was actively wondering, WHO IS THIS now!?!?! is this that woman or another woman?!?! WHICH WOMAN is THIS NOW?!?! that kinda level of confusion.
Music
Music is probably there? I really didn't hear anything particularly impressionable neither was there anything loud or haunting. Music is probably not the main thrill of the show either way, but rather the thought of the incident happening in real life
Spectacle (Wow factor, the core of the genre, whether it is explicit and done well)
So with respect to this criteria, we ask the question, if i was a person looking to see and learn what happens if there is a contagion, will I see it?
The answer to this question is YES you will have a pretty broad view of what happens given the movie length.
However, if you were looking for RIOTS, KILLING, MISSILES, ZOMBIES, CHOP, BOOM, BLAST, you are going to be very sorely disappointed. Virus killing people is usually pretty boring in reality unless the person becomes a zombie afterwards, so with that said, this is realism for you.
Hence this lives up to the genre of a thriller and only a thriller, but its not going to be appreciated by all and neither will it be understood by all.
SUMMARY
Plot : 4 (Its higher because I guess i misread the plot and thought of zombies, but its not to be so)
Character : 4 (Many characters and if you are able to identify, what they do are pretty real)
Cinematography : 3 (Too much switching without clues on who they are, confused at times)
Music : 3 (Never really heard anything, but it was not hindering the show anyway)
Spectacle : 4.5 (If you really look at what the movie was doing, and you are its targeted audience, you will enjoy this show. This criteria will normally be high for whatever movies unless the movie sets off to do something and is far from achieving even that)
Overall : 3.7 (Basically this movie is not for everybody, you can see it once as long as you are sure you belong to its niche group)
So thats my summary for the show, I for one enjoyed it after i realised what it was out to portray.
Please leave your comments below if there are any :D perhaps any revisions to my criteria if needed
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