Outbreak (1995)
Been wanting to rewatch this one since March (for obvious reasons). I’ve always remembered it as a very good movie, but I think I was about 15 years old when I last watched it. So it’s not very surprising that it wasn’t as good as I remembered it – but it’s still not a bad movie.
Great cast, and most of what isn’t good about the movie is just how movies often were in the 90s. It compresses many of the things we’ve now all been living through for months down to about two hours. The vaccine is synthesized within hours, it makes you feel better within minutes, the virus turns you into pulp within a day… nevertheless, the movie is quite effective at getting an emotional reaction from you. I also found it harder to stomach than I thought, it’s just not very pleasant to think back to the horror stories from Italy and Spain just a few months ago. Now that I think about it, easily the one thing that feels most surreal in this movie from today’s perspective is the basic assumption that the US would have a somewhat reasonable response to a crisis.
The movie also features a very young Patrick Dempsey (of Grey’s Anatomy fame, I can’t believe that shit is still running) in a rather small role.