The Andromeda Strain (1971)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

For sure, the Andromeda Strain has an interesting premise! The inhabitants of a village in the middle of nowhere all die where they stand, but for a newborn and an oldster. The suspect? An alien microscopic life form carried to earth by a returning satellite. Thus a group of scientists is put together, more or less under duress, to investigate events. First at ground zero and later in an underground secret lab somewhere in a desert in Nevada. But after this promising start the movie makers forgot something. Shouldn't they put a timer on the whole thing? Granted they do that, but very late into the movie and even at that point they forget to inform group of investigators until even later because they scientists are incommunicado with the rest of the world. So the drama that is for the grab is lost and what conflicts arise never lead to anything serious that you would expect when disparate people have to work under pressure to save the world from extinction. This missed opportunity is born out by little mistakes, such as the fact that the men all are clean shaven even after days of hard work. In fact the whole movie looks crispy and clean. There is even drama fully cooked and ready when some members start to suspect that the alien life form might have something to do with biological warfare. But that moment of tension sizzle out to nothing. Another conflict arises when the scientists advocate to nuke the village, but the politicians hesitate. But it is hardly an issue that impacts the plot. While it should have as it leads up to a twist in the movie. The movie focuses on the scientific investigation using instruments that look hopelessly dated nowadays. A sizable part of the movie has the team go through a sixteen hour decontamination procedure involving a slow descend through five levels of the underground lab that ought to impress the viewers. And I would agree such painstaking thoroughness is impressive and a pain to watch to. And we then see them do the meticulously scientific research for another big part of the movie, which is again an awesome testimonial to the scientific method, but at times feels as exciting as watching paint dry. Blinking computer screens with unintelligible numbers don't do it for me. It is boring.The b rate actors are unable to add to the tension arch which doesn't mean they do a bad job, but they are just not able to amend for the lack of drama like a Henry Fonda can. He can make any dull line of conversation seem interesting but the actors that are billed here aren't up to it. At times the actors looked nailed to the ground, standing up erect and delivering their lines in an almost monotone voice. So now I really saw what wooden acting looks like. All in all the movie is still watchable while you are doing something else as well. For once this might be a movie that actually might do a lot better when remade. I suspect the novel by Crichton is still good material. Just add some more dialog and drama. All ready to go.

Believe me, not that I'm anybody special, but I don't give out '9's very often. I just now finished watching the new Blu-ray and it is frigg'n AWESOME!My Dad took me to see this at the theatre when I was about 12 and I remember VERY vividly that I laid awake all that night, absolutely TERRIFIED that some nasty virus was assuredly going to kill us all. I don't remember just how long I was traumatized by this film, but it was a while. Heh, my poor Dad; there was no way that he would have known the impact that this film would have had on his extremely imaginative and impressionable little p\/ssy of a son.Since then I have seen the film a couple of times, but it has been quite some time since the last time I watched this, but let me tell you, even as an adult now some 40 years later, I can attest to the fact that this is one of THE most effective Science Fiction Thrillers of it's type. Now of course, I can much more fully admire the wonderfully serious and precise way it was put together. I think that this film has probably evoked the most respect for Robert Wise from me so far, even though he has directed MANY excellent films. The structure, pacing, direction, bloody EVERYTHING was perfect. I think that this is probably one of THE very best examples of how when done properly, a film can create the maximum amount of tension, suspense, and an oppressive mood, BUT... without having to resort to graphic violence or anything obvious. The way Wise ratcheted up the unease and tension was nothing less than masterful. And even so... I must admit that at least for me, there was maybe ONE or TWO moments in the film that actually called up feelings of genuine Horror, even though nothing was even close to being overdone or explicit in any way. I WILL say though, without going into too much detail so as to be a Spoiler or anything, but there IS a scene with a monkey that is most disquieting. I DON'T think that they would allow such a scene to be filmed like that now (remember, then they did not have computers to simulate things like they do now) I love animals, but I'm not a PETA activist or anything, and let me tell you that that one scene was really intense. And that is pretty much the bottom line of this film. Robert Wise used EVERY method available, in the most artful way, to elicit the most powerful effect on the audience. But again, WITHOUT resorting to low-denominator crassness. TRUE quality and talented film making at it's very best.After seeing so many films, many from around that time period, I feel that this one stands out above most of the other supposed Sci Fi Classics around that time, building a palpable sense of dread and realism. I think it was the sense of realism that made it work so well; and usually I am one of the LAST people to extol 'Realism'. Usually I am scornfully denouncing it in movies, and particularly the people who can't get into a film unless it is totally 'Real' or 'Believable' to them. Usually I spit venom in the direction of their Mothers, Grandmothers, and various other female family members as I smugly look down scornfully on what, I feel in my superiority, is their less than pitiful imaginations.However...In THIS film, Wise very shrewdly ramped up the 'Realism' in order to draw us firmly into the situation as it was happening, and it damn well held you there in it's Death Grip until it was done with you. Needless to say, in this case, I will quite humbly make an exception.As you can likely tell by now, I hold this film in the HIGHEST regard. Although I am usually quite put off by an overly 'Realistic' style when it comes to film making, especially when such 'Realism' eschews any imagination or suspension of disbelief or stretching yourself a little because it has to be OH SO 'Believable', I was fully held in the spell of this near-Documentary approach to a Science Fiction Thriller. And, of course the introduction at the beginning of the movie sets the tone beautifully.I would say that IF you are the kind of person who appreciates the simplicity of just DAMN good film making, and doesn't need a ton of special effects (although the ones incorporated here were quite ahead of their time and VERY effective) or if you don't require a boatload of sadism and gore, then you should very much enjoy this excellent and powerful Classic film.

I first heard of and read the work of Michael Crichton by chance in my early teens, and found him to be one of the most engaging writers I'd come across. That position still holds; his novels are beautifully paced and expertly crafted, with character driven narratives and well constructed dialogue. As a result, I was sceptical as to how well this would come across in film. I'd seen Jurassic Park before I'd read it and found it very entertaining, though reading the novel highlighted how much of the original story had been 're-made for Hollywood'. Thankfully, The Andromeda Strain does not suffer from the obligatory 'magic touch' of Hollywood.It is paced excellently, steadily building tension whilst thoroughly and accurately exploring how science might discover and potentially exploit extraterrestrial life. The characters are realistic, both in appearance and behaviour, each with their own unavoidable faults that add significantly to the story. As a result, there is an unnerving undertone of man's authority, the right of humanity to conquer the unknown, best described by Dr. Stone - "we will understand it and destroy it". By the end, you will not root for mankind.Suffice to say, this is one of the best films I've ever seen, easily the best science fiction film. Thoroughly recommended.

Within the logic confines of the Cold War and the eternal quest for the upper hand in annihilation, space becomes a frontier for seeking the next new biological weapon. When a US satellite crash-lands in a remote town of Piedmont in New Mexico a sudden outbreak of a cosmic threat causes almost the entire town to die in mid-step. The terrifying reality of an uncontrollable epidemic initiates a clandestine Wildfire project, where the finest scientific minds are whisked away to a secure underground facility with state of the art technology and a self-detonating nuclear device set to explode to prevent any potential outbreak. The project itself was formed by a group of prominent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) specifically for this eventuality: to counterattack any extraterrestial form of life, that could cause a deadly epidemic. Together with fellow scientists Charles Dutton (David Wayne), Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid) and Mark Hall (James Olson) they descend into the facility, where they attempt to isolate the new life form and diagnose the two survivors of Piedmont: an crackpot drunkard and a helpless infant.Transcending into Robert Wise's feature is a prolonged pay-off, mostly focused on the procedural side of such a scenario, slowly building the story and only about midway do we finally get down to actually finding out what the titular Andromeda strain is, which in turn leads to an intense and riveting finale. Meanwhile however we snail downward the facility with five separate levels - each with scenes of progressive sterilisation. The journey to the heart of the facility, where the nitty gritty essence of the research starts, is essentially tedious, albeit serving its purpose of setting up the final act and acknowledging the relapsed tension that such an occurrence would create. Although the fate of the world being at hand, the road to salvation is slow, meticulous and affords no space for a misstep. Despite the slow unwinding there is also little in the way of character development, possibly only Kate Reid's cantankerous Ruth offering a stronger imprint on proceedings, which are otherwise dominated by the science and the crawling Armageddon.Midway the lethargic pacing stalled my interest, but once the story unfolds all the pieces fall into place delivering a high-tempo ending within this otherwise sedentary movie. Coupled with arguably the most exact scientific jargon in sci-fi features history and a overall believable background (despite some ridiculous mumbo-jumbo by one of the scientists about the possibility of microorganisms being sentient) delivers a sombre piece that can bore most, but will engage those who offer the movie their mind and body.