Even worse than swine flu

Contagion - starring Matt Damon and Kate Winslet - is an energetic but dull disaster movie from Stephen Soderbergh

There's something about the apocalyptic plague that holds a morbid fascination for audiences. From the Black Death of Boccaccio's Decameron, to the zombie invasions of a dozen 1970s horror movies, the idea of society being hobbled by a lethal pathogen has recurred time and again as a subject for storytelling.

Some of the concept's appeal seems to stem from the invisible nature of the threat, with our reaction to the unseen medical menace becoming symbolic of contemporary attitudes to a whole plethora of topical bogeymen. So why, given this potential, does Contagion make for such a dull watch?

Watching Contagion, part of the answer definitely lies with the rather underwhelming appearance of the disease itself. When Boccaccio started his Decameron, the reader is treated to lengthy and detailed descriptions of the horrendous physical torments suffered by the infected. In Contagion, there's no such sense of threat. We get a number of lingering profile shots of various characters looking “a bit peaky”, and Gwyneth Paltrow even has a dizzy spell and drops her mug at one point, but most of the time the infection never feels particularly terrifying. Call me desensitised, but unless there's a fair smattering of buboes and exotic skin disfigurements, I'm really not fussed.

Secondly, the screenplay jettisons all the potentially interesting things one can do with the apocalyptic plague motif in favour of a straightforward and rather uninspired procedural. Essentially, there's something nasty doing the rounds, and it's up to Matt Damon and Laurence Fishburne to save the day (Lord help us). One feels sure that the subsequent research into emergency government protocols and epidemic containment was painstakingly done, but it doesn't make for good cinema.

One gets the feeling that the director, Stephen Soderbergh, came to this realisation mid-shoot, and later attempted to liven things up with a slick techno-soundtrack. The result is a nail-biting montage of people checking their emails and talking on the telephone, whilst 24-style music plays in the background.

Perhaps most crippling of all, however, is the film's failure to follow through on its own plotlines. Split into a number of tense mini-dramas, with the story flitting across the globe between different characters, a couple of potentially exciting stories simply get lost in the crowd. For example, much attention is given early on to Jude Law's character, an unscrupulous blogger-cum-entrepreneur who seeks to profit from the outbreak. His story arc is partially developed, following his rise to fame and later arrest, but ultimately Jude is released on bail, and the last we see of him is a rather nondescript scene of him slyly photographing an emergency healthcare facility. It all just felt as if the screenplay was so caught up in the mechanics of how society might cope with a plague that it rather lost interest in the characters themselves.

But there are some positive points here. To his great credit, Soderbergh avoids many of the more noxious ‘disaster movie' clichés (no scene with the President being hurriedly evacuated by helicopter), and he also seems unafraid of depicting a few brutal and perfunctory tragedies early on. Had the film kept up this energy, I think it would have been much improved. As it stands, Contagion is admirably earnest, and just a tiny bit dull.

Rating: ** N2 film reviews – supported by Newbury Vue