Pandemic

If you are looking for an enjoyable zombie movie I would never recommend you this title: poor locations, poorer costumes, awful effects, unrealistic fighting and repetitive framing take away all the fun from watching.

If your interest in movies goes beyond normal, on the other hand, you could probably get interested in this film: besides the lovely Rachel Nichols, always pretty, and the convincing Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy from 'Games of Thrones'), there is a somehow original post-apocalyptic world and a coherent script.

In other words, even though the film is bad, there is talent in Mr. Suits (Producer and Director) and in Mr. Benson (Writer) and I'll be glad to watch their future works.

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

The two glaring flaws to this film are its overuse of first person shaky cam, which while arguably immerses you deeper into the situation and action of the film, also quite simply makes you feel sick, and its appeal to generic audiences, as can be seen in the ridiculously broad title. However, if you can look past these two aspects, as well as the occasionally questionable special effect, then there is a lot of positive things to say.

This film has a great story, it makes sense and is carried out in an organic way, while still ticking all the usual zombie-survival boxes that have become the staple of this genre. The acting is pretty great in my opinion and conveys the right tone for each situation, my only complaint being here that with only four characters for most of the movie there is something lacking in personal interaction and team dynamic, although what there is is good and solidly written. There is also a rich world created within the framework of the film, although it is shown on a small scale, and this could easily be fleshed out more if there is a sequel at some point.

Overall I found myself really liking the simple and solid aspects of this film in the acting and storytelling, although the constant switching of first person views might be enough to put some people off entirely as it does get a bit nauseating after a while. Still there is a lot of good here, especially for fans of the genre, most of us being used to much lower production values and less cohesive plots. For non-fans it might not come across so well.

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.

After I saw the trailer for "Pandemic" by sheer luck on YouTube, I just had to track down this movie and get it watched, especially since I am a huge zombie aficionado. And the trailer for 2016's "Pandemic" looked really intense.

Well, at least the trailer was intense. The actual movie, meh... It was actually semi-boring, which was somewhat of a disappointment and a slap to the face. I must expect that I had expected a lot more from this movie after having seen that trailer.

Certainly there were some good parts to the movie, and those parts had lots of action and a really great and fast pace to it. And that was really what held the movie afloat.

This is not a movie that is driven by acting performances or by character development. Actually the characters in "Pandemic" were very mundane and generic, to the point where you didn't really care if they died or survived, and it didn't matter who died and who survived, because they were essentially the same character, just with a different face.

The acting in the movie was fair enough, taking into consideration the limitations that the acting talents had to work with in terms of script and direction.

The first person view that permeated the movie was a different but not entirely unwelcoming approach to the zombie genre. Sure it has been seen before, but it actually worked out well enough in "Pandemic".

A zombie movie needs proper special effects, and honestly, then "Pandemic" was limping here. The special effects and CGI effects were not impressive to be bluntly honest, and that was sort of holding the movie back in a way.

Putting the cards on the table, then I have to say that "Pandemic" was an adequate movie in terms of being entertaining. But it was far from being an impressive movie addition in the zombie genre.