In Case of Survival

After Earth, starring (Will and) Jaden Smith as warrior types from the future who crash land on Earth hundreds of years after humankind flees from it.

The thing is, I really wanted to see it then I googled it and realized it’s and M. Night Shyamalan movie and all my hope drained away. M Night makes amazing trailers but really shitty movies– all featuring ridiculous twists. I watched The Happening in theaters and left feeling confused and a little offended.

Am I so stupid that I would find it plausible that even in a scifi movie -SPOILER- trees would attack humans in a war-like scenario with no plan then stop with no concessions made?

So a lot of effort had been made to avoid linking M. Night to the movie overtly which isn’t surprising when you look at the poll on the LAtimes.com where 66% (at the time of publication) of readers are less likely to watch After Earth because it’s directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

I still think the trailer looks amazing and I’ll add it to my list of movies to watch on Netflix streaming (don’t even want the DVD by mail) but I think the 12% on Rotten tomatoes might be more accurate than the trailer.

I watched Contagion this weekend with Husband. Duh, I loved it. It wasn’t a hype machine for crazy-pants pseudo -science or mutants or zombies. It was crazy-pants really, real.

Unlike most of the post-apocalyptic stories we see in entertainment, there was an unsettling realism to Contagion. The fear that was so easily fueled and exploited just made sense. There are enough people in the world with enough mistrust to easily create chaos unrelated to the direct source of danger.

The movie followed a number of people in different places as far as the virus’ path, place in society, and ability actually do something for themselves or others.

It was interesting (and disturbing) seeing the little things break people down faster then the actual virus. The idea that the dead were only about 1%, give or take, of the population (maybe, as they only alluded to it), was scary. Society just fell apart. That’s one (maybe two) out of every one hundred people…

I might sound insensitive but, I honestly didn’t think I’d notice. The thing isn’t how long it would take us to notice though, it’s how long it would take the government to respond. Once they start hiding the President and organizing the national guard people start too panic.

We only know what we see on the news and we assume the government knows so much more than we do. We assume they know about science, suspects, cures, and have more than enough food for almost everyone. We assume they, like we would, well take care of their family and friends first and everyone else will have to prove themselves. When we take a good, hard look at ourselves we’ll realize that we probably don’t have the whatever-it-is that someone’s looking for when they decide to save a life at the expense of long term planning for people they actually give a shit about.

Contagion was more about the infectious nature of rhetoric and rumors than the damage done by actual the virus itself.

I say it’s definitely worth the watch but maybe not worth the money to see it in a theater.

Tag: infectious nature

Are you excited about After Earth?

A Mini-Review of Contagion