The Andromeda Strain (1971)
Directed by Robert Wise
When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scrambles to a secure laboratory and tries first to isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form, unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.
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What critics compared The Andromeda Strain to
Children of Men, The Andromeda Strain, 28 Days Later, 12 Monkeys and Outbreak are a few that come to mind.
But it’s smarter than that, and a lot closer to medical thrillers like “The Andromeda Strain.”
While the movie never rises to the level of allegory, it's these zeitgeisty touches that make Contagion worthwhile in a genre that's already seen such serviceable predecessors as Outbreak and The Andromeda Strain .
"Contagion" has more in common with Michael Crichton's " The Andromeda Strain ": Set underground in hyper-sterile laboratory environs, that chilly movie's action was mostly of the cerebral kind, featuring a quartet of dispassionate experts glued to microscopes, computer screens and observation windows, looking to decode a deadly, alien virus.
I was eager to see what a guy who presents so many different looks and styles would bring to a modern-day version of The Andromeda Strain .
It’s not nearly as dull as The Andromeda Strain, but it’s missing the energy of something like Outbreak.
A manic and shirtless John Leguizamo referencing Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain will earn your laughs.
The spirit of late author Michael Crichton (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park) looms large over “Transcendence,” its mix of speculative technology and ethical quandaries making for a familiar, comfortable fit for those so inclined.
The set-up is pure early 1970s sci-fi (Pfister cites the pre- Star Wars canon of The Andromeda Strain , The Omega Man , Silent Running et al as influential) as Johnny Depp's modern Frankenstein, Will Caster, addresses a confrontational audience on the world-changing possibilities of "technological singularity" – the creation of a sentient, self-aware computer that crosses the boundary between man and machine.
At heart, Transcendence is a throwback to the fear-mongering science fiction of the past: not those atomic-age adventures like The Incredible Shrinking Man , but rather the lab-bound likes of The Andromeda Strain and Demon Seed , circa the paranoid '70s.
(Think of how distinctive and involving the people, caught in a somewhat similar predicament, were in Robert Wise's "The Andromeda Strain" without being "movie stars.")
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Levinson's first venture into the genre is plodding and dreary, a waterlogged hodge-podge of Alien, The Forbidden Planet, and Crichton's own The Andromeda Strain.
The story, by Michael Crichton ("Jurassic Park") has echoes of earlier Chrichton stories, such as "Congo," "Twister" and "The Andromeda Strain" and those mentioned above.
We also get a zombies-on-a-plane episode and a tense foray into the terrain of “The Stand” or “The Andromeda Strain” in a zombie-infested medical laboratory where Gerry and a buzz-cut, one-handed female Israeli soldier (the terrific Daniella Kertesz) must search for the highly implausible secret MacGuffin that will fix everything.
It's " Contagion " or " The Andromeda Strain ," but with zombies, and without much panache.
Cinematographer turned director William Eubank’s camera kicks off the film with a pirouette that takes in the palm-fingered, 70s hospital looking corridors of crew quarters – a familiar sight in this genre from “The Andromeda Strain” to “Alien”.
“The Andromeda Strain” concentrated on scientific plausibility; “Children of Men” struck notes of despair and near-religious salvation; a zombie flick is mostly interested in the gory results of infection.
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But it also infantilized the genre whose landmarks at the time were smart stuff like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "The Andromeda Strain."