Pandemic (2007)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

the audience applauded

Don't Believe the Hype

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Having experience in making movies, my son and I really enjoyed this film for its continued suspense, drama, and plot twists, except for the very last scene. The movie strongly led you to believe that there would be reconciliation between the lead male and his estranged wife and son. But for some inexplicable reason, during the very last scene, the lead male character suddenly shows interest in the female lead character where there was no previous romantic connection between them. This last scene completely spoiled an otherwise good movie. I would have rated this movie an 8 out of 10 if it was not for the terrible ending. What were they thinking?!

Given any good story you need a good topic, premise, plot, focus and character. Given a story of scientific and legal in nature a writer must have good familiarity in these realm. He has none of it. It's a made for t.v. show. Given a good story line, most amateur writing will focus on too many characters, in this case, a wanted criminal, a rifle crazed man, a rogue FBI agent, two politicians competing for power, an all powerful CDC officer who don't really have a power, and the not too serious emergency response team. Characters are cardboard cliché', a plot whose ending found a cure for her daughter who got Riptide? The premise is too unbelievable, the plot lacks focus. This writer should watch more blockbusters. Originally one of the best movie Rwanda Hotel had too many characters, until the writer found out and decided to focus on one man. Most movies are focused on relatively few major actor not exceeding 2-3. Take Something's Gotta Give, Jerry Maguire, Rain Man, Die Hard, for example focused on relatively few characters, mostly 2-3 making up 80% of the movie screen. And those characters are a strong one, take the Dark Knight, the Joker, Batman, Superman, Snow White, etc. Given the basics, there is problem about the lack of understanding protocols and laws. The CDC, just can't walk around everywhere, certain laws have to be considered when an act of quarantine is considered. For one thing, the first law is Title 42 United States Code Section 264 (Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act) gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) responsibility for preventing the introduction, transmission, and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and within the United States and its territories/possessions. The second issue of the President, by Executive Order, which is Under the procedures required under the PHS Act, the list of diseases for which quarantine is authorized must first be specified in an Executive Order of the President, on recommendation of the HHS Secretary. By amending the list to include types of influenza that either cause or have the potential to cause a pandemic. As to the knowledge of Tamifl and ways or eradicating the virus, where are sanitation procedures, in place? The seriousness of quarantine, the authority's control over the situation, the closing of public places, the media frenzy into the area, the military action in closing off the area, instead of CDC giving the "idea" of closing off the region. The sudden shock of death. The movie is like there is fire in the house, and people are walking out of the house while they are sleepwalking. If there's any problem about making movies, it's the crappy writing I see all the time. To prevent this I believe that each scenes or plots are organized into modules where parts can be deleted, and characters are focused only 2-3 character through an entire time line of events, and the methodology of quarantine control, should ignore the obvious solution such as vaccines, someone who is immunized to the disease, and other cliché's so common in virus plagued. And in any T.V. drama, people should start being more serious of the circumstances instead of just waking in their sleep. In any event H3N7 virus and other things are interesting, but sanitation, and organized quarantine procedures the writer has difficult understanding the magnitude of the problem, as in most t.v. shows I have seen. To make a good story, the character must huff and puff until the house is blown down. It doesn't start by just sleep walking around the house either.

What can one say, the idea was there, the execution wasn't. This made for television disaster flick lacked intensity. A person with bird flu type symptoms dies on board a plane from Sydney to L.A. The plane, passengers and crew are quarantined, this is all fine. The passengers are moved off the plane to waiting buses, there is little supervision at this point letting a passenger get away. Mistake 1. No government agency would allow such a potentially deadly virus to escape like this. The E.R.C has people with and without bio suits entering and exiting through the same door, Mistake 2. You would enter through one door, change into protective equipment, then enter the quarantine area. you would exit through decontaminating showers and change into new clothes in another area, or you would just spread the infection. The National Guard uses a few wooden barriers to block the road during the quarantine allowing the quarantine to be breached twice. Mistake 3. They would have had armoured vehicles across the road as mobile barricades, every National Guard unit has more than a few. The passenger that escaped walked through the airport, how many people had just got off planes and were catching domestic flights to elsewhere in the U.S? Mistake 4. The virus would have shown up in other cities as containment was breached, just as it did in other cities around the globe. There is a lack of urgency by all those involved, particularly the CDC. How did the head of the CDC, who was taken hostage by the convicted drug smuggler before it was found that Tamiflu was ineffective, know the timing of the drug transport for the drug that was found to be at least partially effective? In such a situation, where was the armed escort? Where is USAMRIID in all this? Would the Federal Government really sit on it's hands and let the locals really stuff this up? Surely there are protocols in place that would have been activated, or are U.S authorities really this stupid? Watch this Movie at your own peril.

I should start by confessing that I didn't last the distance on this movie - I bailed when we got to the traditional gooey sentimental bits - but I can't resist a good disaster movie. This was not one of them.The start was not promising. Note to producers - if you want to show someone just coming out of the water from surfing, make sure there's something more than a six inch break in the background. There's actually very little surfing in far North Queensland because the Great Barrier Reef stops the swell from coming in. Second note to producers - there is no way you could get from far North Queensland to Sydney by car in 8 hours.After that, things got a little better. A bit of character establishment on the plane (so we care about them later when they keel over) though I do wonder why there only seemed to be one stewardess. The landing, unloading of body and passengers and the setting up of the ERC was all low key and convincing. The hovering media rang true but I cannot believe that the Head of the CDC would be so incompetent at handling them.Then it started to get gooey and silly. Gangsters being broken out with no security to be seen. Nieces having to take taxis and thus getting the virus because career-oriented mothers and aunts can't spare the time to pick her up (and can I say that the niece got to the coughing up blood stage remarkably fast). Touching farewells between FBI colleagues - "Hey, you're going to die (maybe he didn't), it's been nice knowing you."That was when I gave a less than touching farewell to this movie.