Brace yourself (or not). Soon to be released is Contagion, the latest film from award-winning director Steven Soderbergh. It stars Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Laurence Fishburne. Until I saw an advertisement for this film on the side of a bus a few weeks ago, I hadn’t heard of this film. It deals with a highly contagious, lethal virus that infects and eventually kills people.
Despite the film’s star power (Damon, Paltrow), the trailer looks cheap and dull. The concept of a viral outbreak that threatens society is a tired one. I lived in Toronto when SARS hit several years ago. People died because of that epidemic – more than official records show. Some people wore masks on the street and all hospitals were under quarantine. Those were scary times. Unless the trailer for this movie is totally misleading, Contagion deals with a concept that is dated. Unfortunately, an idea like this one is not completely unthinkable these days. Also, the trailer reveals that Gwyneth Paltrow’s character dies… Talk about giving too much away in the trailer. Hopefully, the movie itself has much more to offer.