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Outbreak (1995)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
1/17
1/17:
Outbreak is a mix of nice and bad.
The virus outbreak and the biological warfare are the most fascinating aspects. It reminds me of The Hot Zone which was
written by Richard Preston. In fact, some of the stuff used in the film were borrowed from the book.
Unfortunately, the rest of the show is mostly mumbo jumbo about the dangers of military interference and its interest
in developing bio-weapons. That's so old and tired. If it's cut out and the first part is focused on more,
Outbreak will be a much better film.
Speaking of crazy, who can believe a helicopter is capable of going from a faraway town to San Francisco and then
to a ship in the Pacific Ocean and back to the city before returning to the original town? A single tank lasts
between 200 and 300 miles. I doubt the guys know where to fill up because the fuel has to be specialized.
Honestly, I'll never take off the mask anytime whenever the virus hits a town. How the characters did it
several times is plain careless. They should've been immediately infected. Of course, the U.S.'s message to anything
that serious is to bomb the hell out of it and sweep the whole thing under the rug. It's very nice stuff.
Like I will believe, the monkey is easily captured after being set loose in the woods somewhere in California, and the
army guys manage to grab ahold of it just in time. By the way, capuchin monkeys don't come from Africa but Central and South
America. On the other hand, not everybody watches the news; hence, the woman who happened to see the special bulletin report
at the right time is pure bullshit.
Dustin Hoffman does a good job, and Cuba Gooding, Jr., isn't bad, either. Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman are okay. Donald
Sutherland is typecast and thus shouldn't be in the film. The worst part is Rene Russo. She's annoying and a terrible
actress. Of course, her character was going to survive after being infected with the Motaba virus. In fact, I wanted
her to suffer first and then die.
All in all, Outbreak had a workable idea going, but everybody managed to screw it up by adding a lot of unnecessary
stuff.