Pandemic

What I don't understand is how can you get a decent cast and a decent budget and make this crap of a film. Rachel Nichols is the main actress, and she kind of carried a TV show for four seasons; Alfie Allen is Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones; remember Mekhi Phifer from when he was the hot black guy that En Vogue were falling for? Paul Guilfoyle played in everything! And what do they do with this? A shaky-cam version of a zombie movie where even the zombies act subpar.

Frankly, it all feels like a collection of bad cinematic sequences in a really dumb game, only acted by real people. A bored programmer in a basement could have made a better film with 3D models.

The plot is the typical "infected people act like zombies", complete with pseudo-scientific categories from 1 to 5, and ridiculous explanations about what happened and what the plan is. As most zombie films it completely ignores the reasons why zombies aren't attacking each other, and since they are only infected people, why it is so difficult to kill them.

But what really pisses me off is how they use the name Pandemic, letting me hope even for a millisecond that once, just once, someone might make a movie about a real pandemic: no zombies, no government conspiracies, no dangerous trip in a car with family or close friends, just a very possible viral outbreak.

We need reality here, else at the first pandemic Americans take out their guns and start shooting each other in the head. God damn it, make a movie about the Spanish Influenza! Tell the story of tens of millions of people dead while governments at war censor the news to keep moral high. Tell the story of the Black Plague, without making it about witches or religion or some other crap like that. Show people what nature is really about and don't make it about people trying to get to their families and improbable villains that get nothing from spreading the disease.

This movies is not as bad as people are saying. It isn't a good movie. But it is watchable. It has an interesting, if basic, plot. The acting is actually pretty good for what they were given. Slightly shaky camera work but better than something like Blair Witch which made me so ill to watch that I gave up early on. But in this case, the idea is that the camera is on the helmet and should move with the person. So it makes sense. The frustration with this film is that it is so easy to see that it could be made into a film that is much better. The real problem seems to be the dialogue. Improve that, and the 'zombie' acting, then movie would really step up. Even so, like I said, a bad movie but a very watchable movie.

I've always been a big fan of zombie/outbreak/infection movies in all their guises. This perspective however, I had not experienced before.

To start with I wasn't overly enamored with the cast. The lead actress Rachel Nichols (Lauren), struck me as being someone who should have been playing a supportive role rather than trying to carry the movie. She plays a doctor, Lauren, brought in to help in the fight against any further spread of the disease, which has already infected more than it hasn't. The story revolves around a mission to rescue a previous team of uninfected who have failed to return to base.

As I already said, attachment to the cast wasn't a strong point here. At least not until Alfie Allen who plays 'Wheeler' comes into his own. He plays a very background role until we're more than halfway into the movie, but when he comes to the fore, the movie is much improved.

The main pull of this movie for me and the one thing which makes it interesting is the first person perspective we see during the infected attacks. It definitely makes you feel more involved. Gore is quite full-on and explicit, which is always good in this kind of movie, so special effects definitely did their job well in this respect. Sadly in the case of a lot of background shots, the CGI is lacking. I can recall a bus on fire, which was just plain atrocious!

I would recommend this to fans of zombie movies, just for the change of perspective, but overall, I don't think it's a movie that I would recommend to a casual movie fan.

I only write reviews of movies with low rating, which actually are not that bad. Give them a chance!

I must say I am really surprised that Pandemic has 4.9 rating (at this moment)! When I watched it last month it had something between 5 and 5.3, which is still not that good, but 4.9 rating will reject many viewers and that is bad because this is a really good movie about apocalypse! I love movies about apocalypse and post-apocalypse, and if you are a fan too then you should definitely watch this one! I don't like camera, but everything else is really good and the story is cool - movie is truly watchable. Yeah, this is nothing new, there are many similar movies, but this one can still be fun to watch.

6/10

Acting is good. Story outline is good.

But characters are are so stupid. They should have rational behavior. They don't even use basic protection methods when they are not in safe zone.

If mom use bit brain she can save herself at the end. Just she had to do is wait inside the van until soldiers clean the area and then show her blood test to the soldiers.

Also since there is lots of time after the infection, the government definitely keep a method to identify the infected people and save others at the gate.

I recommend this movie only for those zombie film fans who don't any films left to watch. For others, its a waste of time.