The Andromeda Strain

Rating:
Summary: Can four Top Secret doctors stop the biological warfare?
Review: This one is worth watching and boy is the story more prominent today. Top Secret "Wildfire" has taken place. Four doctors are called upon by the Army. When the Army knocks on your door and its Top Secret, you better drop what you are doing and leave with them immediatly. Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) can not tell his wife (Susan Brown of ABC serial General Hospital) anything and Dr. Charles Dutton (David Wayne) can not tell his wife (Frances Reid of NBC serial Days Of Our Lives). Dr. Ruth Leavitt (Kate reid) who is denying her health problems, reluctantly obeys her orders and Dr. Mark Hall (James Olsen) leaves in the middle of performing an operation to obey his orders.
Dr. Hall and Dr. Stone are sent to investigate the bio-contamination of the small town of Piedmont, New Mexico. All people are dead. But they know of one person is still alive. They must find that person. All died instantly, but some went crazy and committed suicide. There is no blood on the dead. They find a baby boy (Robert Soto) crying and a cantankerous old man alive. They sre sent to a laboratory. Charles and Ruth go to a secret place in Flatrock County, Nevada where an inconspicuous building is the U.S. Department of Agriculture, research center. In fact, they are growing barley around it. Inside, they go to the storeroom where there is a hidden elevator that goes down into a five-level underground compound.
The movie becomes fun from there, but with military seriousness. The story builds and builds to incredible suspense.
Can they find out how the organism gets into the body and can they stop it before it spreads outside? It is the ultimate biological weapon.
I recommend you see this film on VHS or DVD. I prefer Full-Screen. Television broadcasts will edit down this movie. Contains brief nudity.
This story is being remade into a television mini-series, "The Andromeda Strain", set to air in 2005.

Rating:
Summary: A Cautionary Masterpiece
Review: Based on the debut novel by Michael Crichton, the 1971 science fiction drama THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN is a rather long but nevertheless compelling study of what might happen if an alien organism from the void were suddenly introduced to Earth's population. Working from a solid screenplay adaptation by Nelson Gidding, director Robert Wise, whose films include THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, THE HAUNTING, and WEST SIDE STORY, makes this movie into a cautionary masterpiece.

The film begins with the crash-landing in New Mexico of a U.S. military satellite, with a deadly organism it has bought back from space. The satellite crashes in the town of Piedmont, whereby the organism is unleashed, killing all but two of the town's sixty-eight inhabitants; only a drunk elderly man and a six month-old infant have survived. Both the survivors and the satellite are taken to a huge underground bio facility in the southern Nevada desert for study by a top-notch scientific team (Arthur Hill; James Olson; Kate Reid; David Wayne). What the team finds out about this new virus, which they code-name Andromeda, could have a potentially catastrophic effect on the entire world's population.

Despite decades of advancement in special effects technology and more elaborate "virus" films like OUTBREAK, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN still works wonders because a good amount of tension is maintained throughout its 131-minute running time. By using relatively unknown character actors rather than big-name stars, Wise puts equal emphasis on plot and character, making the film move at a good clip. The climax of the film, in which the virus escapes its place in the lab and threatens to mutate, is extremely well-handled and suspenseful.

With solid special effects by Jamie Shourt, Douglas Trumbull (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) and Albert Whitlock (THE BIRDS), along with a futuristic electronic music score by Gil Melle, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN remains one of the most realistic science fiction movies in recent memory; and given recent headlines about West Nile virus and talk of biological and chemical attacks, it also remains as timely as ever.

Rating:
Summary: A great book, but a pretty bad movie..
Review: This Chricton classic was wonderful in it's book form, but I'm sorry to say, is horrible in it's movie form. Maybe it was too complex a subject for it's day, or maybe it got unjustly thrown into the 70's sci-fi mold... who knows.. but to be sure, this film is both boring and unbelievable (in a bad way)! I highly recommend the book (which I read in a day!) but I'd say that the DVD is not worth the time it takes to watch (which is far too much) or the money it takes to buy.

Rating:
Summary: FRIGHTENING WHAT IF MOVIE
Review: THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN was the first of Michael Crichton's novels to be successfully screened. It's a tense, suspenseful look at what happens when an unknown virus returns to earth via one of our satellites and quickly decimates the entire population (except 2--a baby and a drunk) of a small town. The movie's focus is on finding out what the virus is and how it can kill so expeditiously.
Robert Wise who gave us THE HAUNTING and THE SOUND OF MUSIC uses some split screen techniques which work well, and keeps the movie dark and suspenseful. Although it has become somewhat dated in its technologies, Wise elicits good performances from the cast, especially Kate Reid, David Wayne and Paula Kelly. Arthur Hill is a little to stiff for my liking, and James Olson overplays some of his scenes.
Still a worthwhile film, and one that will scare the pants off of you in light of where we've come with germ warfare.