directed by:
Neil Chase, David Heacock written by: Neil Chase genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Horror |
Now…I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer & all, but I think the moral of the story here is that if the world is being threatened, make sure to call the bearded guy with the backwards baseball hat - and those bureaucrats that are unafraid to boldly wear their sunglasses in dimly lit air hangers. “You look like an asshole,” says one dude to the businessman early on in “Contamination” before we’ve even learned character names, and I’m with him on that assessment. The team has been enlisted to retrieve a hard drive from somewhere out yonder in the mountains, so cue the man stuff – get the guns, get the flak jackets, and get rippin’ through the water & 4X4 terrain with the ol’ Humvee.
The synopsis seemed alright when I read it. Black ops team, supposedly out to destroy a lab in the Alaskan wilderness. Word on the street, or dirt roads in this instance, is that there’s a deadly alien virus goin’ around that spreads from human to human. Purportedly a blend of Action, Sci-Fi, and Horror combined, as “Contamination” got itself going, I sure felt like what I was watching was about to be dominated by the Action part of that combination. Visually, it all looks spectacular, but the acting quickly seemed a bit thin from the get-go, and the dialogue seemed like it was heading towards more trouble than the team that we’re following in the film. Now, because of my intense training in the hours spent managing a video store throughout the aughts, I can pretty much tell you for a definite fact that a movie like “Contamination” is made by men, for men – full stop. I’m not saying this movie won’t find the occasional long-haired lady to watch it, but they would be far, far removed from the target demographic. The bullets start flying pretty quickly as the team ends up in like…I dunnno what you’d wanna call this plot device – a bunch of random, abandoned buildings deep out in the forest? I’ve never been to Alaska, so maybe it’s full of these things – I do not know. You can see how this is goin’ early on though…we’re introduced to more bullets and types of guns than we are character names, so we might just have to settle for referencing ‘the team’ as one. Then I started to worry and wonder a little bit. Was this location the top-secret lab that the synopsis was referring to? How long has it been abandoned for? Are these hired goons shooting at the team paid by the hour, by the day…on salary/retainer? How does that work? And what exactly are they there to protect when we’re looking at the bones of buildings past? There’s nothing here worth protecting, is there? More bullets, some punches, a couple deaths here & there…and yep, I’m definitely looking forward to where this movie will make a shift towards the Horror part…maybe even the Sci-Fi part too. All this Action stuff kind of just is what it is – “Contamination” struggles for quite some time to establish its identity as a film. In its first third, we’re really just here for the shooting practice and very little plot. “Contamination” feels more like a happy excuse to make a movie where you shoot a bunch of guns. Soon enough, the team captures a (surprise!) Russian, and our friend Petrov looks awfully scared. Our American friends don’t seem so friendly to him, or I suppose to anyone else they’ve encountered, either to be fair…I think they’re equal opportunity haters & not discriminators – they’ve got a job to do. Eventually, we reach an opening to the underground – and now we start seeing some stuff that feels like it could be the secret lab the team has been searching for. A dead dude in a hazmat suit should be one of those universal red flags that stop people from going into wherever they’re heading, but alas, the team does not seem to make a connection to why that might be concerning, and simply presses on. More dead bodies, more awkward jokes that don’t work, blinking machine lights, and one extremely aggressive dude on the team with a very trim beard that needs a really hard man-slap to the face – am I missing anything here? We’re spending a ton of time walking around and scoping things out in silence. Then, right as you think they’d have found something that would have piqued their interest – LIVE human beings inside this old abandoned lab – the team continues to shrug off any warning signs and continues wandering through the building in the dark instead.
Forced to confront one of’em that is busy & focused on bashing out some brains of a colleague with one of those monumentally massive wrenches that like, firemen use to open up a hydrant – we’ve made some contact, at long last! Largely, it still seems like the team would much rather avoid anyone they see along the way, but as the infected folks start to more actively roam the halls & grab weapons, it seems they’re forced to deal with a few of’em. The conversations have all but died down now, and we’re walking slowly through the halls. Exciting! “Contamination” has issues, y’all…I’m trying to be kind and patient here, but there’s so little to go on in this film, and it’s very hesitant to supply quality reasons as to why you’d want to continue to stick with it. Halfway into “Contamination” feels like you’re watching an extended trailer for a “Resident Evil” video game, or the deleted scenes from “The Last Of Us” – and feels like it’s missing the mark of its intentions. So…I mean…it’s all about what the goals are. If writer Neil Chase, who co-directed “Contamination” with David Heacock, simply wanted to make a movie with a bunch of friends and have fun doing it, I’m sure the mission could be considered accomplished. If this movie is intended for more than that, like consumption by the masses…then I think we’re having a way different conversation. It is extremely tough to argue that “Contamination” is doing anything new that we haven’t seen, and perhaps even harder to argue that what it does that seems familiar is being done well enough. It feels disconnected from its potential, and never seems to feel like the entertainment factor ever gets the upper hand. I’m a bit at a loss for words really, because it’s not like zero effort has been put in – in fact, I’d genuinely tell you that I truly believe everyone is doing the best they can with what they’ve got – but objectively, the material just isn’t strong enough here, and it’s most frightening aspect is how generic it comes across. The main strength of “Contamination” lies in how Chase/Heacock filmed the movie. Visually, I really liked it. I think the majority of the cleaner shots came out great, and personally, I even liked the look of a lot of those endless hall wanderings. Effects-wise…that’s tougher to assess. I’m of the mind that if something can’t be done in a convincing way, you’re probably better off leaving out the effects and implying stuff instead, but this movie went the opposite direction. Thankfully, those visual effects are used somewhat sparingly, and for the most part, aren’t required too much in the plot. In any event, using the process of elimination, we know the main strengths aren’t the story, or, a lot of the time isn’t the acting, it’s not the characters or the dialog either…so that kind of leaves the visual element by default, but to their credit, I felt like Chase and Heacock showed us professionalism that proves they know their way around the camera. I’ve gotta call things like I see’em – “Contamination” gets two & a half stars out of five from me – it looks great, but never finds the inspiration it needs to be memorable. |
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