Outbreak | | Cast : | Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman | | Director : | Wolfgang Petersen | | Studio : | Warner Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | March 10, 1995 | | DVD Released Date : | February 08, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | April 04, 2005 | | Summary | Non stop action! | Content
 | This movies makes you want to never share your drink with anyone ever again! I thought Patrick Dempsey did an awesome job. (I wish he didn't die though) He was so sweet to that monkey and he was so hot. Dustin Hoffman is one of the best actors in history. Renee Russo also gives an outstanding performance as Hoffman's ex wife and also works for center for disease control. Morgan Freeman played good guy/bad guy, but of course ended up doing the right thing instead of siding with his evil superior officer played by Donald Sutherland. His character made you hate him more every second throughtout the story. It made me so mad when he was chasing Hoffman and Cuba Gooding Jr. when they had the host (monkey) It's amazing that these evil malicious military jerks do exist. (Oh they are just casualties of war)! I also liked Kevin Spacey's character. He was funny and smart. Come to think of it, there were alot of good actors in the movie. I like those kind of movies where the cast list is huge and full of stars that you know will be good. Next, the disease in the movie is quite frightening as it can happen anywhere. The movie theatre scene gives you chills up and down your spine, because it shows the germs exit from the medical worker's throat, and it's then airborne and goes straight into someone's mouth when they are laughing during the movie. It reminds you of flu season when people are so disrespectful and inconsiderate and they barf all over the place and cough and sneeze on you without a thought. The next scene that was intense was when Hoffman is in the hospital, and they have all the infected people in isolation and the doctor shows him a car wreck victim who caught the disease somehow and it shows the vents all the way through to the other room where the germs are airborne and hoffman goes IT'S AIRBORNE!! And the fact the disease mutated from one strand to a different was even more brilliant. The movie is non stop action and excitement. In fact, I only say it twice, so I think I'm going to buy it. You have my recommendation to do so too. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 06, 2005 | | Summary | Universal Precautions | Content
| It's been quite awhile since I last saw Outbreak. Given the current state of our world today, the what if possibilities of the film take on much more urgeny now. A star studded cast, a fast pace, and a solid script, make the movie entertaining, even as it scares the heck out of you.
Col. Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman), an expert on infectious diseases is called in to study the outbreak of a deadly illness in Zaire. When he arrives, things are already spinning out of control. The virus spreads so quickly that it threatens to wipe out an entire nation in just a few weeks, and he believes that it might have spread to the United States. With the help of his ex-wife Robby (Rene Russo), who works at the Centers for Disease Control, Daniels tracks the virus to the quiet seaside town of Cedar Creek, California. His superiors,' led by Major General Donald McClintock (Donald Sutherland) and Brig. General Billy Ford (Morgan Freeman) reticence to help begins to raise doubts in Daniels's mind, and he must find a cure before the U.S. Army decides to kill the town's populace in order to save the world.
Director Wolfgang Petersen and screenwriters Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool allow the viewers own fears to add to the tension. Adding to an already heightened sense of doom, the cast makes you believe, as well. I knew that Hoffman could act with conviction and intensity. But I forgot how well he handled the actiony stuff too. I have always admired the work of Freeman. He is an actor that can make the most of nearly any role he does--here is no exception. Russo does another one her tough as nails, yet vulnerable parts, while future Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Cuba Gooding Jr., turn up in memorable supporting roles. With so much going on, there's even time for a few well placed chuckles, to lighten things up now and then.
The DVD extras are nothing to write home about. The theatrical trailer, static screen production notes, and filmographies are all you get. I suspect a special edition will be forthcomming at some point down the road though...
Outbreak is a recommended thriller |
| Rating | | | Date | February 13, 2005 | | Summary | Break out the popcorn, skip the ebola | Content
| Outbreak opens in the 1960s in Africa, as American doctors arrive to a remote community that has been wiped out by a lethal new plague. The disease is so deadly, the only way to deal with it is to incinerate the entire village with a firebomb. Cut to a quarter-century later, when an African monkey is illegally imported into the United States and breaks free from the cargo hold. The harmless-looking diminutive simian unleashes a fatal disease that spreads throughout the U.S. The long-tailed Patient Zero is played by a Capuchin actually named Monkey; he also co-starred with look-alike Katie as Marcel in the Friends TV series. Katie was in Anacondas, with Ted. (I wonder how many degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon?) This is a fast-paced, well-acted film and the DVD is definitely worth owning.
Staci Layne Wilson
Author of Staci's Guide to Animal Movies
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| Rating | | | Date | December 16, 2004 | | Summary | Outlandish "Outbreak" | Content
| Movie: *** DVD Quality: ***** DVD Extras: **
A potentially exciting medical thriller concerning the release, spread, and containment of a fast-moving, deadly virus in the United States, which is compromised by a silly subplot involving an attempted government coverup of the problem and cartoonish main characters that you've encountered in a hundred other (better) movies. For example, in how many other films have you seen the estranged married couple who just happen to be competing experts who must find a way to work together for a common cause (Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo as epidemiologists)?; the morally compromised authority figure who misjudges the seriousness of the problem (Morgan Freeman)?; the totally corrupt and evil government official who deserves a harsh comeuppance (Donald Sutherland)?; the uncertain rookie who comes through under pressure (Cuba Gooding, Jr.)?; the superfluous minor character who is only there to arouse audience sympathy when he perishes midway through (Kevin Spacey)?; yada, yada, yada? All those stock characters are here, and they do just about what you illogically expect them to do (my favorite example is the scene in which Hoffman strips off his protective helmet so that his infected ex-wife can touch his face), all the while spouting off cliches and unimaginative shtick dialogue. Of course the script ends with roses and rainbows: the baddies get their hands slapped and certain dangerously imperiled characters are saved. Get this: despite the fact that the virus has supposedly been liquifying their internal organs at a rapid rate, one or two folks get an IV just in the nick of time and it's indicated that their bodies magically repair themselves without permanent damage. Yah, right! The pity is, there's a real movie buried in under the mountainous piles of corn, and a great cast which could have acted the living daylights out of a better script!
The Warner Brothers DVD release offers great sound and picture quality in both letterbox and pan-and scan formats. The extras are woefully sparse, just a couple of frames worth of production notes and scanty - very scanty - biographies and partial filmographies for the main cast members and director Wolfgang Peterson. "Outbreak" is far from qualifying as a "must-see film", but overall it's worth a look ... if you are a fan of the cast members ... and if you can suspend your belief and powers of reason for the 128 minute running time. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 17, 2004 | | Summary | Fine big budget entertainment | Content
| Here is the exemplar of big budget Hollywood entertainment. It has all the qualities for success -- big stars, a solid story, lots of money spent of production values, an emotional subplot connecting viewers to the main characters and a happy ending. What more could you ask for?
While the Amazon review says this is the stepchild of Richard Widmark's 1950 classic, "Panic In The Streets", the aura of this film left me remebering the 1971 epic "The Andromeda Strain". It owes a little to the funny horror film "Arachnaphobia" also.
So, to answer my own question from the first paragraph, what you may want is originality, something this picture doesn't deliver. Still, in its own derivative manner, it delivers the goods solidly and keeps viewers involved all the way through.
Briefly stated, the story involves an imported virus that spreads through both coasts rapidly after arriving in the U.S.A. Hero Dustin Hoffman is continually rejected by bad guys Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, his superiors, in efforts to warn the county of impending peril. Meanwhile, he romantically dances with ex-wife Rene Russo over care of their dogs and other issues of the heart. In the end, the good guys win and the pair seem reunited. No sequel was made to show us that, but we all know how they ended up.
This film had an enormous budget and spent that money well on scene lighting, decorations and military apparel. Some not so great makeup effects worked against the overall plot, but not so far as to deter viewers from following along as scores of people become infected overnight by a mysterious virus sweeping the nation.
This movie exemplifies what Hollywood stands for -- storytelling that is a mile wide and an inch deep, filled with big stars and beautiful scenes, romance and a story where the good guys overcome big odds to win in the end. I don't think it matters what kind of movies you like, there will be something in this one that transcends its run-of-the-mill script to keep you involved and give you a good feeling at the end. It's hardly the last word in great moviemaking, but it's entertainment quotient is way up there.
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