Movie Review: Contagion

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At one point in time, if you wanted to travel the world, it took a lot of time and a lot of effort.  Heck, It used to be that if you wanted to fly the China Clipper from San Francisco to Honolulu, there were about 25 people on the plane and about 17-20 hours in the air.  Today, the same flight is about 5-6 hours and a flight from Honolulu can reach all the way to Newark, New Jersey in just 11 hours and in both cases the planes can hold around 250 people.  The point the movie Contagion is making is that with the mobility of people today, if a highly infectious and deadly disease with a short gestation period ever occurred, it would truly be horrifying as the disease left deadly pockets of destruction across the globe.

The movie begins with Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) coughing and Day 2 appearing on the bottom of the screen.  She's on her way home from Hong Kong.  Shortly after having arrived at a place of safety back with her family, she has seizures, is rushed to the hospital by her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) where she dies.  Don't get mad at The Movie Monkey for revealing this, it's all over the previews so it's no big secret.  What was surprising is just how quickly this major Hollywood star was killed off.  That doesn't happen too often.



The clock is ticking.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Heath Organization  are made aware of people who have died at several locatiosn across the globe.  CDC head Dr Cheevers (Laurence Fishburne) sends investigator Dr Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to investigate Beth's death while the WHO dispatches Dr Leonora Orantes (Marion Cortiland) to Hong Kong to try to locate the initial infection point.  Back in San Francisco a conspiracy theorist Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) discovers a video of a man in Japan who dies on a bus and attempts to sound an alarm. Up front, no one believes him.  As the days pass from the initial contamination, the body count starts rising. The conspiracies run wilder, the doctors and scientists keep working to find a solution.  Some people get sick and survive, some are immune but the death toll goes higher and higher.



There are parallels to what the world experienced back in 2009 with the outbreak of the H1N1 virus.  Contagion takes it a step further with a deeper "What if".  What if the components of the outbreak because more time restrictive, the potency of the virus was ratcheted up, and the method of transmission was even easier?  You sit in your seat for 105 minutes squirming as you watch human nature take over.  People want to hug and kiss but doing so may transmit the disease. Government works to find solutions but fears of creating panic before the full information is available hinder dissemination to the public.  First responders either knowingly or unknowingly putting their own lives on the line.  They just know they are attempting to help someone in need.  News organizations are not sure which information to distribute, those from the government or from other organizations who may have details that are contradictory in nature.  Individuals across the board are trying to keep their reputations and integrity intact when faced with overwhelming circumstances.



What makes this movie work is the slow build of the fear.  How do you protect yourself from something that you can't see without a microscope?  Do you protect yourself?  How do you guard those you care about?  How far do you go to safeguard your own and what lengths to shield others?   How do you distinguish truth from propaganda?  Short of aliens coming down and blowing up planet Earth, the body count is high, even higher than the 1918 pandemic of the Spanish Flu.  With the disturbing images and strong language, the picture was rated PG-13.  When the movie is over, you'll be breathing a big sigh of relief, but remember, if the MEV-1 virus actually existed, that single exhale could be deadly to someone else.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Legion

The end of the world as we know it movies seem to be running rampant. From Zombieland to 2012, The Book of Eli, Day Breakers, Twilight (well, maybe not Twilight, but by watching Bella, you would think it was the end of the world) and now Legion. Don't know why the preoccupation with the end of the world. These movies were put into production before we had the big melt down in 2009 so why so many "downer" movie? But they are coming out and we get to observe all sorts of why that the world will end between diseases, vampires, man made disasters, cosmic alignment and now it appears that god himself is mad with man and wants to destroy him using his angels.

Opening scene, in LA the sky opens up and with a bit of a flash a man appears out of nowhere. Hmmmm...kinda reminiscent of the start of Terminator. In shadow against a stone wall we see wings and then a knife, pain, blood. Hmmmm....didn't I see that in X-Men 2? Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) has come to Earth to help save it. God is mad at man and wants to wipe him off the face of the planet. Gee, the story of Noah's ark and the flood comes to mind. So in 2006 Bettany plays an albino trying to save the Catholic Church from people. Now he's trying to save the people from god. Oh, and the date is December 23.

In a corner of the Mohave desert is a po dunk diner where a rag tag group of people are together when there are problems with radio and tv reception. The diner is owned by Bob (Dennis Quaid) with his son Jeep (Lucas Black), a pregnant woman who goes by the name of Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), cook Percy (Charlie Dutton) and a family dad Howard (Jon Tenney), Mom Sandra (Kate Walsh) and wayward daughter Audrey (Willa Holland). They are joined by lost father trying to get to LA Kyle (Tyrese Gibson). They realize somethings wrong when old lady with walker comes in and tells Charlie that her baby is going to burn in hell in a weird voice and then starts to crawl along the ceiling. One skillet throw and a couple shots later ceiling walking grandma now with lots of small pointy sharp teeth is laying on the ground in a pool of blood.

Later that day Michael arrives dum da dum to save the day! He could care less about the rest of the people, only the baby within eight month pregnant Charlie. The baby is going to be able to save humanity he tells them along with all hell is about to break loose, but it isn't hell, it's the angels from heaven that are causing the problems by using the shells of people who have weak minds to try to get to Charlie's unborn baby. People inside the diner, aptly called Paradise Falls are trying to make it to the next day as the angels attack. Miraculously, on Christmas Day Charlie gives birth during the blowing of the trumpets signaling Gabriel's (Kevin Durand) coming. Funny, Durand played Keamy on LOST who killed Ben's daughter and here he is playing an angel trying to kill Charlie's baby where on LOST Charlie was trying to save Clarie's baby. Weird I know.

Michael and Gabriel battle it out. Lots of bodies get wasted along the way. Questions of anger, wrath, love and faith get put out there. Some get answered, some don't. Does the baby make it to be able to save the world ala John Connor in Terminator or does god's wrath and the angels instructions to smite man by killing Charlie's baby win out?

As a christian, the were SOOOOO much wrong with this movie it isn't even funny. If you believe anything in the Bible you know that God did wipe out mankind because they were so wicked with only Noah and his family being saved with a 40 plus day open ocean cruise. The first part of the trip was ruined by rain, but afterward the sun shone bright. Once the flood waters disappeared He created the rainbow to seal a covenant that He would never destroy man again. Scott Stewart as co-writer and director, not sure what he was going for here. It was such a hodge podge going back and forth between fate, free will, hopelessness and faith. If God already saved mankind one time with his own Son, why would it need to be saved a second time? There are just too many questions that aren't answered to make the story somewhat believable with it's own weird logic. Wouldn't it just have been easier to flood the world again and not tell anyone to build an ark? I guess if they did that it would have looked too much like 2012.

While Stewart is credited with visual effects on some other movies, he wasn't credited on this one. He is credited with a company The Orphanage which did work on this movie. Some of the visuals were pretty good. The looks of Michael and Gabriel were something that was believable if you take to the notion that angels are part of God's army. They accomplished the overall look of doom and gloom and pestilence needed for an end of the world movie.

Was it a great movie...no way. It was meh for overall entertainment unless you like end of the world stuff and then it was OK. The movie runs one hour and 40 minutes and is rated R for foul language and lots of blood. If you stay to the end of the credits there is a slight easter egg but nothing huge if you decided not to stay.

Movie Review: 2012

2012 is probably what you'll spend on this movie for ticket, popcorn and soda if you go by yourself to a matinee show. My cost was $20.75, so pretty close. Why do I mention popcorn? Because this is a good popcorn movie. Roland Emmerich who brought us Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow brings us his latest "Look out world, something bad is about to happen" movie. Clocking in at 2 hours and 38 minutes, you could go through a LOT of popcorn. For me about about 90 minutes into the movie that large soda needed some attention, if you know what I mean other than that, it moved right along.

In this apocalyptic movie the reason the world is going to end has nothing to do with aliens as in Independence Day or nature getting back at mean old nasty man for not treating the earth like a goddess from The Day After Tomorrow. This time, it's pure physics and science with a bit of spiritual thrown in on the side. At least science and physics that make for the storyline. The planets are about to align and sun spot activity is throwing off neutrinos bombarding the earth's core heating it up causing the destabilization of the crust which is as you know where man lives. This end of time is tied in with Mayan calendar which stops in 2012 and the beliefs of other indigenous peoples. Based on this movie we know why their calendars stopped.

We are given a glimpse back in 2009 of what's happening. A scientist in India played by Jimi Mistry of The Guru (cute movie worth a look on rental) calls scientist friend Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to the world's deepest copper mine. Satnam (Mistry) shows Adrian some pretty shocking evidence and theorizes as to what's going to happen to the earth. Adrian runs back to Washington DC and informs the President's Chief of Staff, Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt) of the bad situation. We then get glimpses over the following years of things happening like the evacuation of people from Chinese highlands to make way for a dam and the replacement of the Mona Lisa with a copy to keep if safe from vandals.

We jump to the year 2012 where we meet our hero Jackson Curtis played by John Cussack who is a published author lives in the LA area who lost his family in the process of ignoring them while be focused on his book. Since his book didn't do all that well, he drives a limo to help make ends meet. Through a series of events he ends up meeting Adrian in Yellow Stone National Park and Charlie Frost a conspiracy theorist. Charlie (Woody Herrelson) has been broadcasting to the world that it's about to end, the world governments know about it but are leaving the people clueless.

Jackson ends up back in LA just as all hell breaks loose. Apparently Adrian's time lines and calculatons aren't right, a recurring theme along the way. They have less time than expected. Jackson gets his old family along with the new husband in the limo and then navigates through a crumbling LA avoiding fissures, upheavals of land, falling highways, sky scrapers being reduced to pebbles and scattered cars better then any professional stunt driver. How does he know how to do this? It's never explained. He's either very, very skilled or just one massively lucky son of a gun!

He gets to the airport and again, oh so lucky, Gordon, the new husband has an inkiling on how to fly a plane. Time and time again, this family is very lucky to miss massive disaster after disaster. They have to go back to Yellow Stone and then Las Vegas and finally over to China where the G8 have been building giant arks to save people.

All through out the film, time tables get pushed up. Decisions have to be made. Do you be very pragmatic as Carl does throughout or do you take the humanistic approach which is Adrian's part of the movie. These are questions dotted throughout the movie. Do you just forget about people and worry about yourself, do you risk your life for family and what about strangers people that have had no connections prior to this moment.

There are several tsunamis in this film as crust breaks and the mantle of the earth shifts. There is one scene reminiscent of Deep Impact where the wave is coming and one person stands there knowing what their fate will be in 4, 3, 2, 1 seconds. I can't help but think, back in 2004 in Indonesia and more recently the Samoas while they didn't have a 1500ft wave heading towards them, they had to make decisions like these as water was rushing in and around them. While I hope that no of us ever have to make these kinds of decisions you have to wonder what would I and what could I do if placed in this sort of situation.

Enough of the reality for a moment let's jump back to fantasy. For this film you really have to suspend a lot of what you know in order for this movie to work. Cars jumping over things and not damaging the under carriage, that a plane can fly through an ash cloud and not have the engines get choked out, that the secret can be kept and that ships the size shown in the movie could have enough natural resources, technology and man power to build them in the given time frame are among some of the points that you leave scratching your head.

The special effects were incredible. The film is rated PG-13. While we see hundreds and thousands of people dying enmasse, you don't see it happen directly. You see a body afterward or just before, but you don't see that last second directly. Emmerich likes to take out the White House in his movies and this was no exception. Seeing large land masses ending up bobbing in a sense like ice cubes in a glass or a wave washing over part of the Himalayas were eye candy. Irwin Allen would be proud of the ocean liner meets big wave scene. For me, seeing his interpretation of what would happen to my home in Hawaii was interesting. If this one tower near me was gone I could see Diamond Head from my Apartment in Paradise which would definitely be a hot spot!

So take a healthy does of suspension of belief, grab that large soda and popcorn, sit down and just have a good time. If you buy some of those white cheese, cheddar cheese or kettle corn sprinkle toppings for the pop corn, it will be all that much more fun!

Movie Review: Zombieland

Zombieland....kind of reminds you of things like playing Candy Land, singing winter wonderland or dancing to Earth Wind and Fire's Boogie Wonderland, right? Well, sort of....

The world had been overrun by zombies. How? By a fast acting virus. These are not slow moving zombies, they move quick they too are fast acting! The narrator of the story goes by the name of Columbus played by Jessie Eisenberg of this year's Adventureland movie and he has his rules that he lives by in order to survive. Rule number one is Cardio! Once you see the undead, you understand why. Hmmm....I wonder if Jessie has any other "...land" movies coming up? He was good in Adventureland too.

Coming into the picture is Tallahassee played by Woody Herrelson who really, really wants to find Twinkies in and amongst all the quick moving dead. He meets Columbus and the two start traveling together and this is really what the movie is about, it's a buddy road movie just like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope on The Road to Zanzabar. The zombies are just obstacles preventing them from getting to their destination which due to running into two sisters, Wichata and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) ends up getting changed from east coast destinations to Pacific Playland in California where zombies haven't taken over. Or so they hope. Going back to the names for a second...why names of cities? Because that way it can't get personal. Between the sisters, guess which of the two was the older one?

Like all good road pictures there are trust issues that need to be overcome. Issues between Columbus and Tallahassee and the guys vs the girls. As they work out those issues they end up in LA where they take refuge in a celebrity mansion before they make their final destination.

Along the way we the audience are brought into the movie with little interstitchels that made the movie fun. Columbus' rules were constantly being brought up and the rule was displayed on the screen. While they don't show you all 32, they show a good sampling. Kinda like tapas table service. You got to both read the rule and get a practical demonstration as to why the rule was important. Talking about ways to kill zombies or really not talking so much as seeing demonstrations are handed to you the audience. The scene in Los Angeles was funny. Lesson learned there is watching zombies killings is fun while dealing with real zombies is NOT. Notice the capitalization there.

What surprised me most was not the movie itself, but what was going on in the theater. The movie runs for 80 minutes and is rated R. So why in a movie rated R were there so many kids in the theater? It never ceases to amaze me seeing (and hearing) kids in these types of movies. You would think more parents would be concerned with showing their 6-10 year old kids about human sushi. I don't know what's going on in their own gray matter.

Overall it was a fun movie and would give it a double thumbs up for the appropriate age groups.