Épidémie American Ebola

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.

THE PARADISE VIRUS is a dull epidemic-on-an-island TV movie from a director who really should know better. Brian Trenchard-Smith is a guy who made some highly entertaining B-movies back in the day (THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, TURKEY SHOOT) and he still makes the occasional schlocky masterpiece like AZTEC REX. Sadly, there's no gore, action, bloodshed, or exploitation in this play-it-safe film; thus the threat never feels real or particularly dangerous.

A female scientist and her family are vacationing in the Caribbean when the island they're staying on is hit by a rare virus which causes almost instant death in its victims. She must figure out a way to beat the threatened epidemic before the rest of the population succumbs. Sadly, what this all boils down to is some nice location photography on the Turks and Caicos Islands, and not much else.

Melody Thomas Scott is an average actress, supported here by the equally average Lorenzo Lamas, who turns out to be pretty boring outside of his action roles. THE PARADISE VIRUS throws in a handful of CGI effect scenes showing the virus spreading through the human body but it's fair to say they're pretty rubbishy looking. Elsewhere it's the usual B-movie fare, lots of people coughing and collapsing but the plot lacks the authoritative bigwig who usually acts as the film's antagonist.

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.

I watched about an hour of this movie (against my will) and couldn't finish it. I'd rate it as a 0. The writing was bad, the plot predictable and one that's been done far too many times. The most annoying part of this movie was the acting done by Melody Thomas Scott. This part did not call for someone appearing snobbish, but she managed in every single scene I saw to look like a (sour) snob or someone who was about to spout something extremely sarcastic or cruel.

The two romances which seemed to develop into something serious almost upon the couples meeting was a bit too much.

I should know better than to watch made for TV movies. If there is absolutely nothing on the telly and this is the only choice, read a book.

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.