Outbreak

Rating:
Summary: Stop that Virus!
Review: Viruses scare the bejesus out of people who spend any significant amount of time thinking about them. Stephen King has written a couple of horror stories where humanity is essentially destroyed by the flu. "Outbreak" taps into that primal fear and elevates a killer virus to a status cinematically usually only reserved for tornadoes, volcanoes, great white sharks or Godzillas. In Outbreak a bad virus is discovered in a deep dark place, carried by a cute monkey, and attempted to be stuffed into a military pandora's box.

Wolfgang Peterson knows how to make a suspenseful movie as he proved with "Das Boot" and "Air Force One" and here he gets to work with a cast that would be difficult to reproduce today with Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding, Jr, Rene Russo and Donald Sutherland.

There are a few cliches in the film. Sutherland plays a stereotypical military general who sneers as he orders the death of thousands of innocents in the name of "National Security" - but he does it with skill and enthusiasm. Morgan Freeman dispatches a bomber crew with a speech that could have been replaced word for word with the same speech Slim Pickens delivers to his bomber crew in "Dr. Strangelove" ("I know you have reservations about what you've been ordered to do..... you wouldn't be human if you didn't....")

There are several light-hearted moments, such as when Hoffman's Colonel is out in a helicopter flown by Gooding's Major and they all but acknowledge that they are the characters-in-a-disaster-movie-tasked-with-saving-humanity. "I don't need you to get negative on me now", Dustin says after Cuba summarizes the hopelessness of their situation. "Affirmative, Sir!"

Rating:
Summary: Universal Precautions
Review: It's been quite awhile since I last saw Outbreak. Given the current state of our world today, the what if possibilities of the film take on much more urgeny now. A star studded cast, a fast pace, and a solid script, make the movie entertaining, even as it scares the heck out of you.

Col. Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman), an expert on infectious diseases is called in to study the outbreak of a deadly illness in Zaire. When he arrives, things are already spinning out of control. The virus spreads so quickly that it threatens to wipe out an entire nation in just a few weeks, and he believes that it might have spread to the United States. With the help of his ex-wife Robby (Rene Russo), who works at the Centers for Disease Control, Daniels tracks the virus to the quiet seaside town of Cedar Creek, California. His superiors,' led by Major General Donald McClintock (Donald Sutherland) and Brig. General Billy Ford (Morgan Freeman) reticence to help begins to raise doubts in Daniels's mind, and he must find a cure before the U.S. Army decides to kill the town's populace in order to save the world.

Director Wolfgang Petersen and screenwriters Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool allow the viewers own fears to add to the tension. Adding to an already heightened sense of doom, the cast makes you believe, as well. I knew that Hoffman could act with conviction and intensity. But I forgot how well he handled the actiony stuff too. I have always admired the work of Freeman. He is an actor that can make the most of nearly any role he does--here is no exception. Russo does another one her tough as nails, yet vulnerable parts, while future Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Cuba Gooding Jr., turn up in memorable supporting roles. With so much going on, there's even time for a few well placed chuckles, to lighten things up now and then.

The DVD extras are nothing to write home about. The theatrical trailer, static screen production notes, and filmographies are all you get. I suspect a special edition will be forthcomming at some point down the road though...

Outbreak is a recommended thriller

Rating:
Summary: Break out the popcorn, skip the ebola
Review: Outbreak opens in the 1960s in Africa, as American doctors arrive to a remote community that has been wiped out by a lethal new plague. The disease is so deadly, the only way to deal with it is to incinerate the entire village with a firebomb. Cut to a quarter-century later, when an African monkey is illegally imported into the United States and breaks free from the cargo hold. The harmless-looking diminutive simian unleashes a fatal disease that spreads throughout the U.S. The long-tailed Patient Zero is played by a Capuchin actually named Monkey; he also co-starred with look-alike Katie as Marcel in the Friends TV series. Katie was in Anacondas, with Ted. (I wonder how many degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon?) This is a fast-paced, well-acted film and the DVD is definitely worth owning.

Staci Layne Wilson
Author of Staci's Guide to Animal Movies


Rating:
Summary: Outlandish "Outbreak"
Review: Movie: *** DVD Quality: ***** DVD Extras: **

A potentially exciting medical thriller concerning the release, spread, and containment of a fast-moving, deadly virus in the United States, which is compromised by a silly subplot involving an attempted government coverup of the problem and cartoonish main characters that you've encountered in a hundred other (better) movies. For example, in how many other films have you seen the estranged married couple who just happen to be competing experts who must find a way to work together for a common cause (Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo as epidemiologists)?; the morally compromised authority figure who misjudges the seriousness of the problem (Morgan Freeman)?; the totally corrupt and evil government official who deserves a harsh comeuppance (Donald Sutherland)?; the uncertain rookie who comes through under pressure (Cuba Gooding, Jr.)?; the superfluous minor character who is only there to arouse audience sympathy when he perishes midway through (Kevin Spacey)?; yada, yada, yada? All those stock characters are here, and they do just about what you illogically expect them to do (my favorite example is the scene in which Hoffman strips off his protective helmet so that his infected ex-wife can touch his face), all the while spouting off cliches and unimaginative shtick dialogue. Of course the script ends with roses and rainbows: the baddies get their hands slapped and certain dangerously imperiled characters are saved. Get this: despite the fact that the virus has supposedly been liquifying their internal organs at a rapid rate, one or two folks get an IV just in the nick of time and it's indicated that their bodies magically repair themselves without permanent damage. Yah, right! The pity is, there's a real movie buried in under the mountainous piles of corn, and a great cast which could have acted the living daylights out of a better script!

The Warner Brothers DVD release offers great sound and picture quality in both letterbox and pan-and scan formats. The extras are woefully sparse, just a couple of frames worth of production notes and scanty - very scanty - biographies and partial filmographies for the main cast members and director Wolfgang Peterson. "Outbreak" is far from qualifying as a "must-see film", but overall it's worth a look ... if you are a fan of the cast members ... and if you can suspend your belief and powers of reason for the 128 minute running time.

Rating:
Summary: Fine big budget entertainment
Review: Here is the exemplar of big budget Hollywood entertainment. It has all the qualities for success -- big stars, a solid story, lots of money spent of production values, an emotional subplot connecting viewers to the main characters and a happy ending. What more could you ask for?

While the Amazon review says this is the stepchild of Richard Widmark's 1950 classic, "Panic In The Streets", the aura of this film left me remebering the 1971 epic "The Andromeda Strain". It owes a little to the funny horror film "Arachnaphobia" also.

So, to answer my own question from the first paragraph, what you may want is originality, something this picture doesn't deliver. Still, in its own derivative manner, it delivers the goods solidly and keeps viewers involved all the way through.

Briefly stated, the story involves an imported virus that spreads through both coasts rapidly after arriving in the U.S.A. Hero Dustin Hoffman is continually rejected by bad guys Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, his superiors, in efforts to warn the county of impending peril. Meanwhile, he romantically dances with ex-wife Rene Russo over care of their dogs and other issues of the heart. In the end, the good guys win and the pair seem reunited. No sequel was made to show us that, but we all know how they ended up.

This film had an enormous budget and spent that money well on scene lighting, decorations and military apparel. Some not so great makeup effects worked against the overall plot, but not so far as to deter viewers from following along as scores of people become infected overnight by a mysterious virus sweeping the nation.

This movie exemplifies what Hollywood stands for -- storytelling that is a mile wide and an inch deep, filled with big stars and beautiful scenes, romance and a story where the good guys overcome big odds to win in the end. I don't think it matters what kind of movies you like, there will be something in this one that transcends its run-of-the-mill script to keep you involved and give you a good feeling at the end. It's hardly the last word in great moviemaking, but it's entertainment quotient is way up there.



Rating:
Summary: Simply a great entertaining movie!!!
Review: I first saw this movie when I was 14 years old and found it very entertaining but I didn't fully understand it. Now 8 years later for some reason I rented it again and can now fully appreciate the genius of this movie. Donald Southerland does a great job of playing the villian devoted to keeping a highly lethal biological weapon secret at the expense of American citizens. Dustin Hoffman plays the great charismatic and hillarious doctor willing to do anything to save lives. The all star cast of Renne Russo, Cuba Gooding Jr. Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey and the small part of Benito Martinez (Capt. David Aceveda from "The Shield" an AWESOME show) is fantastic. This movie is serious, thrilling and entertaining all at once. However to fully enjoy it you cannot watch a "TV" version. The profanity makes it funnier and really takes it to the next level. Here is one of the best lines in movie history. It is late in the movie in the helicopter chase:

Gen. McClintock(D. Southerland): W/ all do respect Col. Daniels if you don't accompany us to Travis airforce base I will blow you out of the sky!

Col. Daniels(D. Hoffman): Gen W/ all do respect BLEEP YOU! Sir!

I don't know why I just found that hillarious. Anyway this movie is truly worth the price and has major rewatchability. You can watch it many times. Great Cast, Great Script Great Directing. It's just great!!


Rating:
Summary: Stop that Virus!
Review: Viruses scare the bejesus out of people who spend any significant amount of time thinking about them. Stephen King has written a couple of horror stories where humanity is essentially destroyed by the flu. "Outbreak" taps into that primal fear and elevates a killer virus to a status cinematically usually only reserved for tornadoes, volcanoes, great white sharks or Godzillas. In Outbreak a bad virus is discovered in a deep dark place, carried by a cute monkey, and attempted to be stuffed into a military pandora's box.

Wolfgang Peterson knows how to make a suspenseful movie as he proved with "Das Boot" and "Air Force One" and here he gets to work with a cast that would be difficult to reproduce today with Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding, Jr, Rene Russo and Donald Sutherland.

There are a few cliches in the film. Sutherland plays a stereotypical military general who sneers as he orders the death of thousands of innocents in the name of "National Security" - but he does it with skill and enthusiasm. Morgan Freeman dispatches a bomber crew with a speech that could have been replaced word for word with the same speech Slim Pickens delivers to his bomber crew in "Dr. Strangelove" ("I know you have reservations about what you've been ordered to do..... you wouldn't be human if you didn't....")

There are several light-hearted moments, such as when Hoffman's Colonel is out in a helicopter flown by Gooding's Major and they all but acknowledge that they are the characters-in-a-disaster-movie-tasked-with-saving-humanity. "I don't need you to get negative on me now", Dustin says after Cuba summarizes the hopelessness of their situation. "Affirmative, Sir!"

Rating:
Summary: A movie worth watching!
Review: Outbreak, brings to the screen the likely scenario that a deadly virus (similar to the Ebola virus) spreads rapidly endangering mankind, and threatening life on Earth. The likelihood of such a phenomenon is presently great indeed (as it always has been i.e. the Black Death etc), and hopefully the film will get many people thinking.
The movie is very realistic in its approach, and conveys a much needed message of the dangers facing people, especially when dealing with viruses (how easily many of them spread e.g. an airborne virus in an airplane or a movie theater). Moreover, one realizes how the government would have to act in such an emergency and the type of use of the military one should expect in order to protect the majority of people that have yet to be infected and contain the spread of the disease.
Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Rene Russo, whose performances are simply amazing, make this movie one of the best of its kind.
The actors' great talent and chemistry clearly shows, thus providing a film that can be watched over and over again.
Resident Evil (Milla Jovovich) is another very good movie dealing with virus-related incidents/threats, though it falls much more under "Horror" than Outbreak, which is a more "Thriller/Action" type of film. Another movie that comes to mind is Twelve Monkeys (Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Medeleine Stowe), which is a futuristic/science fiction approach to similar virus-related threats to humanity.
In short, Outbreak is a very good movie, it's an eye opener, and very much worth watching!

Rating:
Summary: TENSE AND TERRIFYING
Review: Wolfgang Petersen's OUTBREAK, featuring a stellar cast of Oscar winners and nominees, is a brilliant, tense and terrifying nail-biter that had me on the edge of my recliner!! Dustin Hoffman is perfect in his role as the edgy virologist who discovers the horrifying ramifications of a new ebola-like virus; Rene Russo transcends that aloof beauty with a nuanced and touching performance as Hoffman's estranged wife; Donald Sutherland, who has yet to get his much deserved Oscar, is chilling as the general who will spare no one to protect a secret; Morgan Freeman as his co-consipirator with a conscience is great; Cuba Gooding Jr. as Hoffman's sidekick is perfect, as is Kevin Spacey as the doomed associate; J.T. Walsh in a three-minute scene is mesmerizing as he lays out the fate of Cedar Creek to a tablefull of bureaucrats.
OUTBREAK is a brilliant movie, one that will make you think and will have you on the edge of fear throughout!