Contagion

The parts of "Contagion" that Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns carefully considered are good enough to offset their occasional baffling missteps, but, all the same, what could have been a monumental work on par with "Traffic" ends up a passable, insightful film that lets up way too early. The subject (international epidemic) and its treatment (personal but withdrawn) seem like they could work better in a mid-range independent vehicle, where Soderbergh would have more freedom to follow the premise to its rightful conclusion. Instead, this is part of the venerable filmmaker's ouevre that tries to pander to the masses, and unfortunately, it seems caught between artistic risk/observation and rushed starfucking/killing.

The film, the structuring of which probably didn't the consideration it deserved, begins with the disheveled looking Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow), on the way back home from work abroad in Hong Kong. She seems pretty sick to her husband Mitch (Matt Damon), but he thinks nothing of it. The same goes for people all around the world, from a Hong Kong casino waiter (the same one that Beth visited during her trip) to a model in London, who end up getting very, very ill. This turns out to be a fatal malady, and they are among the first victims of what will become a far-reaching, smothering outbreak.

Soderbergh and Burns decide to view this scenario from many different angles: that of the everyman, of the doctor, of the PR person, of the self-centered blogger. In doing this, they spread "Contagion" farther than it should go, at least in 106 minutes. (Add another part, a la "Che," and they'd be cooking with gas.) There's not enough depth to go around, even/especially considering the wealth of actors involved (Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, John Hawkes, and more) and it seems as though they realized this after it was too late, budget- and time-wise.

A lot of the details are sterling, but much of the overriding emotion seems off. To give an example: Mitch not only loses his wife and step-son, but realizes that she's been cheating on him. Then 26 million other Americans die. Significant, eh? Not enough so that he can't give his daughter (Anna Jacoby-Heron) from his first wife a home-made prom night with her formerly star-crossed lover. Barring one mini-breakdown and a couple of shouty moments, he doesn't seem to have a lot to say or feel, or at least not much that's shown on camera. The lack of care invested here is unsatisfactory. "Contagion" overall feels like it deserved a couple more drafts, to work out kinks and loose ends (and maybe to decide to make some choices like, perhaps, scrapping the synth-y score and not having non-diegetic music), before it was assembled. Because what's good is definitely good enough. B

Carnage

On paper I think "Carnage," taken from Yasmina Reza's "God of Carnage," sounds pretty interesting: a real-time, devolving argument between two couples who fight each other verbally rather than physically and who begin to see how really screwed up their marriages are. However, Roman Polanski follows up his excellent "The Ghost Writer" with one of the thinnest and least necessary motion pictures of the year. Superficial, monotonous, and strung together, "Carnage" is a tired, flat film almost entirely limited to an apartment that's supposed to be in New York (though with Polanski's house arrest, it wasn't shot there). As a result of that, it's pretty thematically limited as well, and the only kicks one can expect to get out of this come via the occasionally funny script.

Zachary whacks Ethan in the face with a stick in a park, and the parents want to sort things out. Ethan's, Penelope and Michael (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly), invite Zachary's, Nancy and Alan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz), over to settle matters and what seems to be a simple chat to set up positive interaction between the boys turns into much more as the guests stay to eat apparently horrific cobbler, drink coffee, spew bile, drink, and, to the annoyance of everybody, answer countless phone calls.

Sure, some of the satire works at times, and the performances are decent, but it's not really worth it. Whit Stillman does this sort of thing better. "Carnage" is certainly not worth spending a bunch of money on, especially if you're someone who doesn't see a ton of movies. C