Contagion

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Josh, Tyler

Steven Soderbergh's latest and as usual he's gone out of his way not to repeat himself. It's a very naturalistic version of a viral epidemic, following multiple character's stories around the world as the unknown virus spreads.

While everything is kept very grounded and realistic, I also found it a little cold and distancing. I was hoping there might be more tension built but the whole thing is kept very procedural. Part of that might be due to the limited time we get with characters because of the multitude of plot lines going on at once. Each story felt like it was its own film that they had to boil down to the bare essentials to fit them in.

Chances are they all probably did film an entire movie worth of each plot line. It's the kind of thing Steven Soderbergh does. It also might explain the unusually high number of Oscar nominees in the cast. Although again, that's not out of the ordinary for him either.

I'm interested to see this at Imax instead of the fuzzy 35mm film print I watched today. I believe this is the first film shot on the Red One that's been mastered in 4k. As it was it didn't look that spectacular on this screen. But that could also be due to the very sickly looking colour palette they've used in the grade. Blyeah.

There are plenty of different scenarios and characters in the film that I haven't seen much before. It's a pity we only get to skim the surface, otherwise this was very interesting.