Épidémie American Ebola

If they have to tell you in the description how brilliant and beautiful the virologist is, chances are it's because the actress needs the assist to convince you. This "brilliant" woman has a voice that sounds like Minnie Mouse on helium and all the gravitas of Chuck-E-Cheese at a child's birthday party. Overall, the movie's watchable but you may have to not only suspend your disbelief, you may have to take it out back and shoot it.

True, this isn't the greatest film ever made, and it's dollars to donuts never going to win an Oscar, but it's not all that bad of a film. The love stories are somewhat unbelievable, but the plot is okay, reasonably well-paced and it passes the time on a rainy afternoon.

Man, is it great just to see Young and The Restless star Melody Thomas Scott as something other than flighty Nikki Newman! A doctor with a brain no less! And super nice to see her with the likes of the gorgeous Lorenzo Lamas instead of Victor Newman!

Mel plays a college professor of micro-biology who goes to the islands with her son for spring break, only to find herself a prisoner of the island infested with a rapidly spreading virus. Handy for her there is the hunky character played by Lorenzo, who has a daughter just her son's age.

Mel shines, as does Lorenzo with a bit of the overacting from the younger couple. Interesting premise in these times of chemical and biological terrorism talk. Worthwhile seeing, especially for Y&R fans.

Standard "Disease outbreak in remote area; expert who happens to be vacationing in the area takes charge" movie. There are only a few deviations from the norm. One is that the kids involved are pretty reasonable from the outset. Usually they are monsters who repeatedly gum up the works until they redeem themselves in the end. Another is that the local medicine man/witch doctor who is normally an impediment early on is never completely discounted or redeemed in the end. Perhaps since this seems to have been made for the faith oriented PAX channel, they didn't want to seem too judgmental about the faithful. Finally, there were no evil local politicians/leisure industry bigwigs trying to cover the whole thing up. The lack of these stereotypes was refreshing -- if we have the PAX channel to thank for that I may have to sample a few more of their offerings. Aside from that, however, this was pretty standard stuff. You've seen it all before.

I have two problems with this movie. The first is the cover and the second is the credits. This movie starred Melody Thomas Scott. She was BY FAR the lead actor on this movie and yet the male co-star who was nothing more than a supporting actor was put in the front on the cover and his name came first in the credits.