. . . which is total balderdash, as the Brit in the cast roped into his first American job might say. Graham McTavish (Captain Riley) says during his DVD extra interview he was worried he'd be fired as soon as he opened his mouth and the crew heard his crappy American accent, but he needn't have worried. This PANDEMIC defect was microscopic for a project plagued by pandemic defects. Since it would take more than a gigabyte to list them all, I will just focus on two.
Characters state in the movie that the fictitious setting of "Diablo County, New Mexico" (actually Arizona) is the least populated county in the U.S. Well, I have made many visits to the least populated county in my home state--a state which is one of the 10 most populous--and that county has a population of about 1,800--with NO stoplights and NO McDonalds or other fast food restaurants. It also is my understanding that there are about 100 counties out West and up East LESS inhabited (by human beings, at least) than the county I have in mind. The fictional Diablo County shown in PANDEMIC, however, has a McDonalds, a large original downtown area and an even larger, newer commercial district. The infrastructure, featuring numerous stoplights and heavy traffic in frequent scenes, obviously contains a population well north of 5,000. Plus this particular county is said to have OTHER towns! Not to mention all the ranchers living outside city limits. So to list one of the many crew members pressed into service as "actors" (some with fake names, apparently unable to afford SAG cards) as an "angry villager" is a ludicrous misnomer.
Secondly, the plot threads unravel throughout the movie at a rate even faster than that at which the Army's killer virus is mutating. One can only guess who is supposed to have released the virus in the screenwriter's mind--the general dad, who may or may not be involved in a military junta now running the USA, or his totally implausible prodigal son, who spends his first five years AWOL from the "Special (Ed?) Forces" fighting for every anti-Western guerrilla movement in the world, and then the next five years hanging out with America's only ventriloquist veterinarian (I don't even have time to discuss this laughable post-production ADR loop-group screw-up) an his horse farm. It is really terrible a person has to pay just as much to watch PANDEMIC today as they would need to shell out to see AVATAR (and there was at least a modicum of talent involved with this project; I rated the cast & crew DVD "Interviews" extra for PANDEMIC at 7 of 10).
Characters state in the movie that the fictitious setting of "Diablo County, New Mexico" (actually Arizona) is the least populated county in the U.S. Well, I have made many visits to the least populated county in my home state--a state which is one of the 10 most populous--and that county has a population of about 1,800--with NO stoplights and NO McDonalds or other fast food restaurants. It also is my understanding that there are about 100 counties out West and up East LESS inhabited (by human beings, at least) than the county I have in mind. The fictional Diablo County shown in PANDEMIC, however, has a McDonalds, a large original downtown area and an even larger, newer commercial district. The infrastructure, featuring numerous stoplights and heavy traffic in frequent scenes, obviously contains a population well north of 5,000. Plus this particular county is said to have OTHER towns! Not to mention all the ranchers living outside city limits. So to list one of the many crew members pressed into service as "actors" (some with fake names, apparently unable to afford SAG cards) as an "angry villager" is a ludicrous misnomer.
Secondly, the plot threads unravel throughout the movie at a rate even faster than that at which the Army's killer virus is mutating. One can only guess who is supposed to have released the virus in the screenwriter's mind--the general dad, who may or may not be involved in a military junta now running the USA, or his totally implausible prodigal son, who spends his first five years AWOL from the "Special (Ed?) Forces" fighting for every anti-Western guerrilla movement in the world, and then the next five years hanging out with America's only ventriloquist veterinarian (I don't even have time to discuss this laughable post-production ADR loop-group screw-up) an his horse farm. It is really terrible a person has to pay just as much to watch PANDEMIC today as they would need to shell out to see AVATAR (and there was at least a modicum of talent involved with this project; I rated the cast & crew DVD "Interviews" extra for PANDEMIC at 7 of 10).