Contamination mortelle

I can imagine this got produced when a TV exec walked into the TV writers workshop and said " The Brits have produced a great little film called 28 DAYS LATER so who`s got a script about a virus ? " The star pupil put their hand up and replied " I`m working on a script about an evil global drugs company who have got a monopoly on Aids drugs but it`s only half written " to which the TV exec said " Great let`s use that "

I`m not saying this happened exactly or even happened at all but that`s the impression I got watching DO OR DIRE , oopps sorry I meant DO OR DIE . It struck me that it was written with a heavy social message in mind with the country polarised between " cleans " and " infecteds " but there`s been too much studio interference with some people wanting to keep the social message , some people wanting to inject a lot of action and people wanting to cash in on 28 DAYS LATER where plots featuring a virus are all the rage ( Geddit ? ) , but whatever happened this TVM is a bit of a mess with a plot that manages to be both rushed and vague

There are a lot of mediocre sci-fi films these days, and this is one of them. It's not awful but there's not much to it. They clearly didn't invest too heavily in a writing staff. It's fairly predictable, even if you aren't a big sci-fi fan. The film just ambles its way along with no real revelations or insight. The only "interesting" piece about it is the special effect used for one of the methods of killing people.

Do or Die was a made-for-TV SciFi original whatchamacallit. It looked like it was originally planned as a miniseries and then chopped. We are shown a post-"blight" world in which those with an incurable (but not contagious) disease form an oppressed underclass. Upon even cursory examination, the premise makes no real sense, and its veneer of meaning is merely that -- all surface and no substance. It acts like it has the intelligence and foreboding of A Handmaid's Tale, but by painting broad villains, a fictionalized disease with no social impact, and extreme circumstances, the movie avoids all the meat and pours on too much gravy. Still, I admire that SciFi is making real science fiction, of the sort that might have appeared in Analog fifty years ago. 6/10

The number of deaths in this movie make it rather sad to watch, but it fits the atmosphere well. It is a bit sad, however, that all the entities in the movie (the police, the company, the punks) are all "reduced" to a single person representing them, which makes everything too easy. This movie would've worked better as a series.