Possible spoilers contained within.
I just finished watching this movie with my wife. She is a health care professional - a nurse - and a former military medical professional. I'm also former military - an NBC specialist - so I know way too much about this stuff in real life.
After watching about half an hour of this movie on FX, the first comment we made to each other was that this is entirely too realistic. The second comment after about an hour was that this movie is scarier than any slasher flick that we've seen.
The premise behind the movie is simple - a terrorist infects a small population in New York City with smallpox, which, with modern travel, is able to go around the world during the incubation period and eventually kill millions around the world.
We did not particularly care for the ending - it is possible that a terrorist might have not had his identity discovered. It is highly unlikely that the nationality of the terrorist would not have been found, though. One thing that we both found to be incorrect was in the burying of the bodies. That may have been the only thing to do in third world countries. However, the only real way to insure that the bodies do not continue to be breeding colonies would be cremation. So in this case the film makers missed the mark.
By not using well known actors, the film makers made this look just like real documentaries that play on the History Channel. The voice actor that impersonated President Bush was very good as well, and including Al Sharpton in a cameo made for a nice touch as well.
I did find it interesting that there were no comments in the film about infections in the middle east. Perhaps this was a deliberate attempt not to mention Iran, Libya, North Korea or any other country where such biological weapons have been known to be made. Another note is that such an event was covered quite nicely by Tom Clancy years ago as a prelude to a military action.
One comment by the Russian scientist - these are not weapons of mass destruction, just mass casualties - is true to a certain extent. The film makers did not cover - perhaps wisely - that if this had been found to be the result of action by a nation state, that the response of the U.S. is to respond in kind. And the U.S. considers gas to be a bug to be a nuke - so while we don't have massive stocks of nerve gas or bio-weapons, we do have plenty of nukes available.
The last few minutes of the movie seemed quite rushed. I think this one could have lasted about another hour, and been fleshed out MUCH more - instead of going from day 31 to day 91 so quickly.
All in all, a 10 for realism, a 5 for being rushed, and an 8 overall. Very scary stuff, when you really think about it. It would have only taken a bit more for the pandemic to have killed many, many more people around the world - and that should have been covered.
I just finished watching this movie with my wife. She is a health care professional - a nurse - and a former military medical professional. I'm also former military - an NBC specialist - so I know way too much about this stuff in real life.
After watching about half an hour of this movie on FX, the first comment we made to each other was that this is entirely too realistic. The second comment after about an hour was that this movie is scarier than any slasher flick that we've seen.
The premise behind the movie is simple - a terrorist infects a small population in New York City with smallpox, which, with modern travel, is able to go around the world during the incubation period and eventually kill millions around the world.
We did not particularly care for the ending - it is possible that a terrorist might have not had his identity discovered. It is highly unlikely that the nationality of the terrorist would not have been found, though. One thing that we both found to be incorrect was in the burying of the bodies. That may have been the only thing to do in third world countries. However, the only real way to insure that the bodies do not continue to be breeding colonies would be cremation. So in this case the film makers missed the mark.
By not using well known actors, the film makers made this look just like real documentaries that play on the History Channel. The voice actor that impersonated President Bush was very good as well, and including Al Sharpton in a cameo made for a nice touch as well.
I did find it interesting that there were no comments in the film about infections in the middle east. Perhaps this was a deliberate attempt not to mention Iran, Libya, North Korea or any other country where such biological weapons have been known to be made. Another note is that such an event was covered quite nicely by Tom Clancy years ago as a prelude to a military action.
One comment by the Russian scientist - these are not weapons of mass destruction, just mass casualties - is true to a certain extent. The film makers did not cover - perhaps wisely - that if this had been found to be the result of action by a nation state, that the response of the U.S. is to respond in kind. And the U.S. considers gas to be a bug to be a nuke - so while we don't have massive stocks of nerve gas or bio-weapons, we do have plenty of nukes available.
The last few minutes of the movie seemed quite rushed. I think this one could have lasted about another hour, and been fleshed out MUCH more - instead of going from day 31 to day 91 so quickly.
All in all, a 10 for realism, a 5 for being rushed, and an 8 overall. Very scary stuff, when you really think about it. It would have only taken a bit more for the pandemic to have killed many, many more people around the world - and that should have been covered.