The Andromeda Strain

Rating:
Summary: Chilling Premise, but Downhill From There.
Review: The year is 1971. A satellite has fallen to Earth and landed in Piedmont, New Mexico, population 68. The military has dispatched two men to retrieve it, but upon arriving in Piedmont, they discover the town littered with corpses. The men only have time to briefly contact their superiors before succumbing themselves. The military quickly realizes that the satellite, Scoop 7, which was intended to collect samples of microscopic extraterrestrial life, has brought back something very dangerous indeed. Emergency protocols are implemented and four top biologists from around the nation are called upon to investigate the threat. The leader of the team is nobel laureate Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill). His colleagues are Dr. Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid), Dr. Charles Dutton (David Wayne), and Dr. Mark Hall (James Olson), a surgeon and the only MD on the team. Drs. Stone and Hall first must go to Piedmont to retrieve the satellite. Once there, they find two persons still living, a baby who cries constantly and an old drunkard. They proceed to a top secret underground compound code named "Wildfire". Here, they must identify the contagion and find a method of containing it before the catastrophe spreads beyond the little town of Piedmont.

"The Andromeda Strain" is based on Michael Crichton's novel of the same name. The story's premise, a lethal extraterrestrial microbe on the loose, certainly presents opportunity for an entertaining, suspenseful sci-fi thriller. And the film does have its moments. But I found "The Andromeda Strain" overwhelmed with credibility problems and suffering from some basic storytelling mistakes.

The film is poorly structured. The movie spends too much time demonstrating the features and protocols of the Wildfire compound, none of which have any relevance to the story with the exception of Wildfire's self-destruct mechanism. I felt like someone was trying to sell me the place. I also found the film's conclusion to be very unsatisfying. The plot essentially resolves itself by means of a deus ex machina.

An awful lot of "The Andromeda Strain" just doesn't make any sense. Science fiction doesn't have to entirely make sense, but I've always felt that it should be consistent within the parameters of the world the author has created. Part of the problem is that the movie takes place in 1971, contemporary to its production. If a story takes place on the other side of the galaxy or in the distant future, it is easier to write off nonsensical plot elements as artistic license. But "The Andromeda Strain" sets out to be believable. The filmmaker's go so far as to claim that the events are real at the film's start. So they should have given more attention to the film's credibility. I won't list all of film's breakdowns in logic. But here are a few. You will undoubtedly find more: Where would a satellite come by an extraterrestrial microorganism? Satellites don't actually go anywhere; they just orbit. Why do the scientists go through those time-consuming decontamination protocols? Any containment measures which protect the scientists from the organism will obviously also protect the organism from them. How could the organism's rate of replication and mutation spontaneously and exponentially increase? If the organism had behaved like that all along, the crisis would have been averted before it had begun.

It's possible that I would have been more tolerant of "The Andromeda Strain"'s faults if I had seen the film in the early 1970's. Audiences were probably impressed by the film's high-tech gadgetry at the time. But many other movies from the 1970's have stood the test of time. I think that "The Andromeda Strain" is more useful as an example of cinematic technique and popular culture from its time than it is a good or entertaining film.

Rating:
Summary: My all-time favorite movie to date!!!
Review: As a kid I saw this movie but had no idea what it was - my parents did not want to leave us with babysitters so we just tagged along. The scene that got stuck in my head and remained way in the back was the one where somebody is climbing a ladder and "getting shocked" - as I saw it then and finally getting to to some device to turn it off.

In 1999, I rented every 1970 sci-fi flick to find out what movie had this scene. I saw some pretty interesting flicks like Omega Man, Westworld, and Zero Population Growth(which I thought was it!). It just happens that a movie buff I ran into told me what movie that scene belonged to.

Since then I saw it 9 times in 1999 and 3 more times in 2003, this now beats out Pricilla Queen Of The Desert.

This movie maximizes on Suspence and of course Michael Crichton's book. Now this is not some cheesy sci-fi about aliens invading or monsters. There is not much action, it's a slow-poker. What makes it so good is the way it engrosses you and keeps you tagging along all the way with it.

Some in a review says the acting is terrible. Now I am not much on detecting good and bad acting jobs (unless it's really fouled up) and I did not notice. However here is a note about the acting: In the DVD's "Making Of" feature the Director said he deliberately went for low-profile actors because he felt it would compromise the story. This makes sense because of it's documentary nature. (Like I said, it's a slow going movie that uses suspense for all it's worth).

Here you have 5 scientists who get pulled out of their lives, brought to the Wildfire installation to research a new virus or bug. They must go through rigorous sterilization procedures before they can begin their work. You get a realistic view of what goes on inside a scientist's laboratory and well, it's not all action and and focused on stud-men or sexy women love scenes etc (Although Kate Reid did turn me on, and Paulla Kella was hot). I am delighted that there were no love scenes in this film.

I really like the secret installation. This movie is not set in the future so it comes off as ahead of it's time in technology. It's not a stretch to imagine such an installation existing today with even more advanced equipment and procedures. The secret elevator, was sooo cool. It reminded me of when I read Independence Day because there was a secret elevator in that one but it was not in the movie. Who would expect a storage closet to be and elevator! I would have loved this as a kid.

Even thought this is a suspence-thriller sci-fi, the movie gets off a few elements of comedy but nothing that would detract from the seriousness. Kate Reid's "attitude-ee" character is mostly responsible for these, the most obvious one: "I MEAN IT STONE, YOU CAN TAKE YOUR BODY ANALYSER AND YOU CAN....{Thump! we see/hear. the door close on her face.}"

Great movie for drama, suspense, sci-fi gadetry and NO LOVE SCENES!!!!

Rating:
Summary: A thrilling albeit rather technical science fiction classic
Review: The Andromeda Strain is the faithful 1971 adaptation of Michael Crichton's bestselling novel, and while the movie is quite good at what it does, its overemphasis on science fact and hard science fiction can make it seem rather tedious at times. The story gets off to a rousing start, as two soldiers sent to recover a downed satellite find a small, remote town littered with dead bodies and quickly increase the body count by two. A military-ordered flyby of the area reveals no signs of life at all, but a biohazard team that arrives in the dead town finds the satellite and two miraculous survivors - an old man and a strong-lunged baby; at this point Project Wildfire is quickly set in motion. Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill), Dr. Charles Dutton (David Wayne), Dr. Mark Hall (James Olson), and Dr. Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid) are quickly gathered up by the military and sent to the secret underground lab designed to deal with just such an emergency. It seems that the U.S. had been looking for specimens in space in the guise of Project Scoop, and now it had definitely found something - something which could kill every human being on the planet in short order.

It is at this point that the plot starts to seem a little weird to me. None of the four scientists knows a thing about the super-secret Project Scoop, and two of them even balk at the demands for their assistance. Dr. Leavitt is a sometimes cantankerous older lady with a bit of an attitude problem, and Dr. Hall's selection makes little sense (I'm sure he was not the only doctor in the nation who had no family). While Stone and Dutton already know each other, everyone else is a stranger to one another, and at least two of them hail from the private sector, which is the last place I would expect the military to go looking in a crisis of this magnitude and nature. Once they all get together, Stone explains the situation and lays out a plan for identifying, studying, and hopefully stopping whatever the satellite brought back to earth with it. Before the four scientists can begin studying the mystery, they have to go through total decontamination. This process takes a mind-boggling sixteen hours, with six of those hours dedicated to sleep. Once they finally make it down to the bottom level, they go through scientific test after scientific test, pausing only occasionally to gripe at one another.

Experiments show the unknown agent to be unique and ruthless in its deleterious effects; within seconds, the blood of anyone exposed to it is turned to powder. The scientists make steady progress, despite their bewilderment at the properties of what is obviously something not of this earth. Miscommunication with Washington, D.C. makes them believe they have more time than they actually do in order to understand and neutralize this unworldly threat to human life itself, setting the stage for an exciting conclusion tainted somewhat by a rather convenient set of circumstances and events. The movie trailer promised that audiences would be standing on their feet for the final ten minutes of the movie; this was a gross exaggeration.

My problem is with the whole lab setup. A threat of this biological nature would demand quick action indeed, yet the whole world has to depend on four scientists who have never really worked together being contacted and shuttled off to a secret location. Add the time it takes to get them there to the sixteen hours of decontamination processing they must go through before beginning their crucial jobs, and you get a lengthy amount of time during which a truly virulent germ or disease could have spread far and wide.

The majority of this movie deals with the scientific tests the scientists run on their specimens. This is quite interesting in its way, but I'm sure some viewers will find themselves bored to tears amidst a sea of scientific mumbo-jumbo. The darkly energetic atmosphere built up around the opening scenes dies quickly in the sterile arena of the secret lab and never really returns. Still, I would be prepared to give The Andromeda Strain five stars were it not for the ending, as the filmmakers definitely, to my mind, took the easy way out when it came to concluding what was, up to then, a suspenseful thriller presented in as serious and scientifically valid a way as possible.

Rating:
Summary: Crichton's best material!
Review: I remember watching this movie as a kid and was fascinated by its state of the art gadgets. Though some of the storyline was way out there for my age, I still understood the plot. This movie is still very effective and very much not so far fetched. This was Michael Crichton best material for the screen. Watch it!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Entertainment in glorious widescreen.
Review: Where to start? The film has never looked better. Crystal clear in widescreen it looks as if it were filmed last month. A good cast in Arthur Hill, David Wayne, Kate Reid and escpecially James Olson. Many fine supporting players including Ramon Bieri and John Carter to name but a few.
The extras are fascinating - I won't reveal too much suffice to say that the work accomplished on this piece is amazing!
BUY IT!

Rating:
Summary: Best Adaptation of Crichton's Work Ever
Review: Michael Crichton's work often may be formulaic, but in the Andromeda Strain, he takes full advantage of a standard sci-fi formula to create a gripping, frightening tale of biological disaster. The film, based on his book of the same title, is by far the best and most loyal adaptation of Crichton's work to the the screen, far superior to B-movies like Congo, Sphere, and even the blockbuster Jurassic Park.

The premise: a crashed space probe releases the Andromeda Strain, an alien bacteria that coagulates human blood. The scientists dispatched to study the bacteria in an underground biocontainment facility soon find themselves in a struggle of science vs. nature and eventually discover the Andromeda Strain's weakness in a very H.G. Wells-esque realization.

Overall, the film is well done and enjoyable despite its reliance on formula for its plot, and though slightly dated, the tale is still compelling today, particularly in the climate of biowarfare and bioterror that has come to dominate the public consciousness post-9/11.

Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars but...
Review: When I first saw this movie in 1971 I was transfixed. While I have become a little more analytical over the years of seeing it on TV and through tape, laserdisc, and earlier DVD incarnations, it's still one of my favorites. (My latest is the Universal 21239 DVD.) Recent national and world events have only intensified the relevance of the story. But I have a complaint. In the first release I saw there was an initial segment portraying the loss of tracking and control of the orbiting satellite and the attempt of the government to find it as and after it reentered and crashed. I thought this added a great deal to the drama and effectiveness of the movie. But it has been cut from the beginning ever since. It badly needs to be restored.

Beyond this there are some less important comments and missteps. (I did not read all of the 59 previous reviews here to see if I'm duplicating.)

*The town used for the crash point of the satellite is never credited. It is Shafter, TX, a silver mining ghost town in west Texas. (Nearby Alpine is my hometown.)
*The highly contagious rapidly lethal organism doesn't affect the buzzards scavenging the corpses.
*The "Piedmont" flyover, supposedly from a jet fighter, is way too slow.
*The crawlers displaying teletype messages are likewise much too slow.
*Watch for Crichton as the tall doctor in the OR (told in the extras).
*The imaginary secret desert government installation was concocted before Area 51 was revealed.
*Kate Reid can't pronounce "thermonuclear". (Neither can Bush.)
*The "Making of" feature is not great; shows the pre-computer methodology used to simulate the transparent computerized 3-D facility images.
*The xenon sterilization lamps fry all the hair and surface skin off their bodies EXCEPT THEIR HEADS!
*The wavelength button is labeled A instead of Å (A with the little circle over it - these reviews often don't transfer the special Arial characters correctly), as any piece of technical equipment would.
*The prefix "M" (which is "mega") is used instead of "µ" (Greek mu) for "micro."
*Inside joke: The DVD extras reveal that the green organism on the sample screen was simulated by ultraviolet flourescent paint. Dialog says "They do look like spatters of paint," and later "luminous paint."
*A (computer synthetic?) voice message intones "Computer capacity vs. access time is 10 to the 12th bits." Gibberish.

Rating:
Summary: Quite simply, the best.........
Review: Quite simply, the best thriller, the best suspence film, the best monster movie, ever. The techno looks a little dated, but this was filmed thirty-three years ago! Doesn't it deserve a little slack? And please note that I said 'a little dated'. It in no way interferes with the enjoyment of a top notch masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Quite simply, the best.........
Review: Quite simply, the best thriller, the best monster movie, ever. The techno looks a little dated, but this was filmed thirty-three years ago! Doesn't it deserve a little slack? And please note that I said 'a little dated'. It in no way interferes with the enjoyment of a top notch masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Sci-Fi
Review: Based on Michael Chricton's book, the movie Andromeda Strain faithfully follows in it's footsteps. It explores the story of a group of hand picked scientists who are called together to study an alien virus brought from space via a returning space probe. The probe crash landed in a remote town in the American southwest and when it was opened it killed almost every inhabitant. The government instituted a coverup so as not to panic the populace while the scientists studied the disease in an attempt to understand it's nature. While you might associate a laboratory movie as being tedious, this is turned into a taught thriller that effectively holds your attention to the end.

This will not have a broad appeal, you'll have to have some interest in the topic. Also, unlike many movies, they will expect you to understand the basic concepts of what they're doing, rather than dumbing it down severely. Very much worth the watch however.