Andromeda Strain

Beyond this there are some less important comments and missteps. (I did not read all of the 59 previous reviews here to see if I'm duplicating.)

*The town used for the crash point of the satellite is never credited. It is Shafter, TX, a silver mining ghost town in west Texas. (Nearby Alpine is my hometown.)
*The highly contagious rapidly lethal organism doesn't affect the buzzards scavenging the corpses.
*The "Piedmont" flyover, supposedly from a jet fighter, is way too slow.
*The crawlers displaying teletype messages are likewise much too slow.
*Watch for Crichton as the tall doctor in the OR (told in the extras).
*The imaginary secret desert government installation was concocted before Area 51 was revealed.
*Kate Reid can't pronounce "thermonuclear". (Neither can Bush.)
*The "Making of" feature is not great; shows the pre-computer methodology used to simulate the transparent computerized 3-D facility images.
*The xenon sterilization lamps fry all the hair and surface skin off their bodies EXCEPT THEIR HEADS!
*The wavelength button is labeled A instead of A (A with the little circle over it - these reviews often don't transfer the special Arial characters correctly), as any piece of technical equipment would.
*The prefix "M" (which is "mega") is used instead of " " (Greek mu) for "micro."
*Inside joke: The DVD extras reveal that the green organism on the sample screen was simulated by ultraviolet flourescent paint. Dialog says "They do look like spatters of paint," and later "luminous paint."
*A (computer synthetic?) voice message intones "Computer capacity vs. access time is 10 to the 12th bits." Gibberish.


A Cautionary Masterpiece   September 19, 2004
Erik North (San Gabriel, CA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Based on the debut novel by Michael Crichton, the 1971 science fiction drama THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN is a rather long but nevertheless compelling study of what might happen if an alien organism from the void were suddenly introduced to Earth's population. Working from a solid screenplay adaptation by Nelson Gidding, director Robert Wise, whose films include THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, THE HAUNTING, and WEST SIDE STORY, makes this movie into a cautionary masterpiece.

The film begins with the crash-landing in New Mexico of a U.S. military satellite, with a deadly organism it has bought back from space. The satellite crashes in the town of Piedmont, whereby the organism is unleashed, killing all but two of the town's sixty-eight inhabitants; only a drunk elderly man and a six month-old infant have survived. Both the survivors and the satellite are taken to a huge underground bio facility in the southern Nevada desert for study by a top-notch scientific team (Arthur Hill; James Olson; Kate Reid; David Wayne). What the team finds out about this new virus, which they code-name Andromeda, could have a potentially catastrophic effect on the entire world's population.

Despite decades of advancement in special effects technology and more elaborate "virus" films like OUTBREAK, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN still works wonders because a good amount of tension is maintained throughout its 131-minute running time. By using relatively unknown character actors rather than big-name stars, Wise puts equal emphasis on plot and character, making the film move at a good clip. The climax of the film, in which the virus escapes its place in the lab and threatens to mutate, is extremely well-handled and suspenseful.

With solid special effects by Jamie Shourt, Douglas Trumbull (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) and Albert Whitlock (THE BIRDS), along with a futuristic electronic music score by Gil Melle, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN remains one of the most realistic science fiction movies in recent memory; and given recent headlines about West Nile virus and talk of biological and chemical attacks, it also remains as timely as ever.