Outbreak (1995) User Reviews

Fantastic entertainment...

[paul_haakonsen · 7/10 · 14 March 2020]

Despite of being from 1995, then "Outbreak" is still a movie that very much holds it own and is very watchable even now in 2020. Well, especially more so now in 2020 given the Covid-19 situation. Which, incidentally, is also the reason why I opted to sit down and watch this classic one more time.

The storyline in "Outbreak" is very riveting and captivating, drawing in the audience quite fast, with a very intense and interesting storyline. This movie is essentially about a small outbreak of a new strain of virus that crosses borders and quickly turns into a very dangerous virus that runs amok and out of hand.

Aside from a very interesting storyline, then the movie definitely also benefits from having a very impressive cast ensemble, which includes the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Donald Sutherland.

"Outbreak" is a movie that can be watched again and again, and it never ceases to be as intense and interesting as it was the first time I watched it. For this accomplishment the writers Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool really deserve a lot of praise. And also director Wolfgang Petersen did a great job with this movie.

If you haven't already seen "Outbreak" for some reason, now is the right time, especially with the pandemic situation happening in the world today.

My rating of "Outbreak" is a very solid seven out of ten stars. I can warmly recommend that you take the time to sit down and watch - or re-watch - this movie, because it is very intense and very entertaining.

Good Dramatisation of a Very Real Threat

[mjw2305 · 8/10 · 27 January 2005]

With a deadly virus spreading like the Flu in the town of Cedar Creek, Military and Civilian Viral Specialists Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo, are caught up in a race against time to discover a cure for this Microscopic Menace, known as Motaba. This isn't the first time that the virus has struck, but last time out is was hidden from the public and remained in the hands of the Military, as the perfect Biological weapon.

Desperate to keep the Weapon Safe, Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, will stop at nothing to protect it, even if that means killing innocent Civilians.

With the cast already mentioned and support from Kevin Spacey and Cuba Gooding Jr. the film is packed with fine acting performances, and enough thrills and tension, to show us exactly how serious the threat of this weapon is, and the lengths that people goto, to preserve it.

Very realistic in content, this is turns out to be a fine Dramatisation of a very real threat.

8/10

Intrigue, action and suspense film about a deadly and rapacious virus spread in the air

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 6 February 2012]

When a disease in Africa is found , extreme measures are necessary to stop a rapacious epidemic , as dinky Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) of the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases is sent to discover it . When he reports back to his chef officer General Ford (Morgan Freeman) and tells him that they should put out an alert on this disease but the General that since the disease is so far away and not airborne that it can't possibly reach the U.S . However, a monkey from that part of Africa was captured by a man (Patrick Dempsey) and brought the USA and tried to sell it but when the person he tried to sell it to rejected it he released it. Col. Daniels wants to look into it but General Ford denies his request so he turns to his estranged ex-wife (Rene Russo) , who works at the Center for Disease Control or CDC to look into and they discover it's the African disease but since it kills very quickly, Col. Daniels feels that it's been contained until another outbreak and learns the virus makes the bubonic pest look like a cough . The virus expands rapidly in the air like a common cold but the Army superiors have an agenda to their own . Meanwhile Hoffman must contain the virus that's somehow made its way from Africa to the USA and the events go awry . But military intelligence (Donald Sutherland) have other plans to avoid deadly virus in which a sub-continent the size of America may be consumed and decimated .

Suspense thriller with plenty of action and intrigue about a deadly virus is spread in the air . The pictures results to be a metaphor for AIDS panic in the same way that 50s extraterrestrial films mirrored fears of Red Menace . The story shows the scientific methods by which such viral ills are identified and tracked , including touches on the ethical problems as germ warfare , elimination of infected and several others . Nice performance for all-star-cast as Hoffman , Russo , Morgan Freeman as a good general , Cuba Gooding Jr as intrepid official expert on helicopters , Kevin Spacey as helper and many others . Appears unjustly uncredited T.J Walsh as US President , Dale Dye and Lance Kerwin . Colorful and appropriate cinematography by Michael Balhaus , Clint Eastwood's usual . Stirring and adequate musical score by James Newton Howard . Good direction by Petersen who does have its thrilling moments , most of them in the first half , though the second half degenerates in a superhero movie in which Hoffman turning into an one army man -almost caricature and barely credible- against the military intelligence represented by nasty Donald Sutherland . Wolfgang Petersen has directed very good films since his beginnings in Germany with ¨The Neverending story¨ and ¨Das Boot¨ ,after that , he emigrated US where realized ¨Night of shattered crystals¨, ¨Enemy mine¨ , and the successful ¨Air Force one¨and ¨The patriot¨ , though his last film was a semi-flop , the remake ¨Poseidon¨. Rating : well worth watching , better than average .

Well Made Film

[FilmFanInTheHouse · 7/10 · 12 October 2008]

Outbreak (1995, Dir. Wolfgang Peterson)

It's 1967 and there's a deadly outbreak of 100% mortality rate virus in Motaba River Valley, Zaire. The Valley is destroyed to prevent the virus from spreading, but 27 years later, the virus finds its way over to the USA aboard a monkey. This time though, the virus has evolved and is now airborne, as Col. Sam Daniels (Hoffman) races to not only prevent a virus epidemic but to prevent the destruction of Cedar Creek by the corrupt Maj. Gen. Donald McClintock (Sutherland).

Great acting from its talented cast and superb storytelling make a well made film which hooks you into waiting for the final outcome. Story doesn't focus on the effects of the virus, but rather the hunt for the cure, which makes a far better film.

You want a hotshot scope-jockey, fine, but, frankly, I'm hurt. – Maj. Casey Schuler (Kevin Spacey)

imperfect, but entertaining

[Special-K88 · 21 October 2002]

Hoffman is a U.S. Army doctor who specializes in disease control, and is burdened with personal problems following a recent divorce. He and his research team have their work cut out for them when they're assigned to try and contain a new, terrifyingly deadly virus that's made its way from Africa and caused an unprecedented epidemic in a small U.S. coastal town. It's a race against time as they try and locate the host animal carrying the virus, as well as save the lives of the town inhabitants before his Army superiors can carry out their own agenda. Suspenseful, well-crafted thriller is not always surprising, but it is believable and acted with conviction by a dynamite cast. ***

Okay with a beer and a pizza

[Angeneer · 6/10 · 6 October 1999]

One of those superficial movies with (feared) mass catastrophe, with the cliche memories from the past, the good, the bad and the ugly characters etc etc. Also the classic American-people-this-American-people-that crap which may not annoy you Americans but makes a movie UNBEARABLE for the rest of the world. Cliche guy who is the best but has a problem with his superiors and cliche divorced couple who rejoins in the end. Generally, only for those seeking an average to good no-brainer action movie. Call the pizza delivery half an hour before, you don't wanna start watching this film with nothing to eat.

There always has to be a disease, doesn't there?

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 22 May 2006]

"Outbreak" isn't any kind of masterpiece, but worth seeing nevertheless. Portraying the army trying to contain a deadly virus brought by a monkey smuggled into the country, the movie seems especially relevant, what with bird flu and all. A particularly disturbing scene takes place in a movie theater, when a person coughs and the camera follows the particles catching on everyone's lips as they laugh, unaware of the fate that awaits them.

The always dependable Dustin Hoffman plays as intense a role as ever as the colonel in charge of trying to control the virus. Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey and Cuba Gooding Jr. also play their roles very well. Donald Sutherland's menacing looks are perfect for the kind of character whom he plays. All in all, Wolfgang Petersen directs another good one here.

Just Too Much Stupidity by People Who Should Know Better

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 5 January 2017]

This is a real potboiler. It's another one of those films that has so many contrivances that it's hard to keep track of it all. It is also laden with incredible incompetence by so many people whose lives and positions revolve around absolute care and precaution. People are practically running into each other trying to do the next thing. Torn suits (why bother to wear them), accidental injections, escaping monkeys, kisses of death, are just part of the craziness, not to mention the motivations of the bad guys. And finally, there is that battle in the air. The actors are some of the best, but the plotting and happenstance are really too much.

An under-rated action-packed thriller from start to finish!

[edmundwells · 9/10 · 8 March 2020]

I loved this movie when it first came out and found it just as enjoyable upon a recent re-watching. Afterwards, I noticed that it carried the same IMDB rating of 6.6 as a more recent disease-disaster movie, "Contagion", which I find perplexing.

While "Outbreak" was fast-paced and carried an engaging plot with an exciting climax, "Contagion" played out like a BBC documentary, with no real plot, no character development, and no climactic finish. Both movies had great casts, but I felt that they were largely wasted in "Contagion" since the characters were incidental to the virus and you never become invested in anyone's welfare. Neither is wholly realistic, but at least one is entertaining.

I challenge fans of the genre to watch both movies and vote to correct what seems to be a great injustice to "Outbreak", which is clearly a more entertaining movie.

With COVID19 out

[JayPatton88 · 7/10 · 21 August 2020]

Rewatched this, I thought it was ahead of it's time as far as realistic looks for handling a pathogen able to cause a world Pandemic. Strong cast, good plot, good movie.

Good first half, then loses its way

[Evildad · 5/10 · 4 April 2015]

This film has a gripping premise: the idea of a deadly virus, with 100% mortality, getting loose in the United States. During the first half, the film is involved with first discovering the outbreak, at two different locations, then trying to track down how it's transmitted and trying to find the vector or host that brought it into the country. All the medical drama is engrossing, and the actors are excellent.

Then it becomes a military cover-up story. We get some ridiculous helicopter combat flying, a bomb that's going to be dropped on innocent civilians to vaporize the town and eradicate the evidence, and Dustin Hoffman pleading to the flight crew over the radio to do the right thing and not drop the bomb. Even the military cover-up would have been OK if the storyline had been more plausible and not tried to make the ending an action adventure. It just felt like someone decided the movie needed an exciting ending and threw a bunch of nonsense in at the end.

Terrific

[ethan_murdoch · 9/10 · 25 April 2004]

When I first saw this movie, I was ten, and even then I liked it. The script itself housed very funny one liners, particularly form Spacey's character. But I was amazed at how fast the film itself moved. In the first, you are following these scientists going to Africa to find a virus outbreak. Next thing you know, you're watching a helicopter go head on with a plane.

First comes the acting. Dustin Hoffman is stupendous as always, Rene Russo plays Robbie with realism, Kevin Spacey makes for a good humor man, Cuba Gooding Jr. pulls off the green man trying to earn respect, and being a bad-ass at the same time. As always, Morgan Freeman is wonderful. Any role I see him in is a role I remember. He's always different, too, neigh does he ever repeat in characterization. Sometimes he's funny, sometimes he's incredibly serious. Last but not least comes Donald Sutherland, one of my favorite actors to date. He can jump into the shoes of any character, including the general trying to protect a secret he knows he shouldn't. One actor whom I particularly enjoyed watching was J.T. Walsh. It's a great shame he died, I liked all his stuff from Breakdown to Pleasantville. He is only in Outbreak for about five minutes, but he has one of my favorite monologues in the history of film. He commands attention as he speaks.

Next comes the story itself. A very to-date story. A one all can relate to because it could very well happen. A virus from Africa makes its way here and begins infecting all, without a cure. I liked that there was a hero aspect in Sam Daniels. he was the tracker, the hunter, the curist. Coupled with the story comes the dialogue. Rich, under-appreciated, funny, and serious all wrapped into one. As I said before, the monologue for Walsh is brilliant. Many lines are etched into my mind, and are often used in conversation. Too bad no one knows what I'm saying.

I'm a bit surprised this film didn't bode too well with audiences. Mayhap they didn't want to see what could happen, who knows? My only complaint is character endings. You insinuate what happens to McClintock and Ford, also Sam and Robbie, but we don't ever see Casey again. I could infer that he dies, but he could very well have survived. I wish there was a way to know.

Finally comes Wolfgang Peterson's remarkable direction. I've been a huge fan of his movies since this movie, including Air Force One, Enemy Mine, not much for Perfect Storm, but his upcoming Ender's Game should be good.

At the end, I felt a certain sense of relief and wonderment. But I have to say the soundtrack is rather exquisite. I have always liked James Newton Howard, and though the cd is short in time, it's a time I cannot forget. Particularly the end theme when it's chopper vs. plane time. What a song, keeps me in suspense every time. I like songs that are taken for film trailers as well. It's still too bad not a lot of people know about this movie.

9 out of 10

Scary subject matter parlayed as a popcorn thriller

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 11 December 2006]

Adaptation of Richard Preston's 1994 nonfiction book "The Hot Zone" stars Dustin Hoffman as Col. Daniels, a medical scientist doing research on an Ebola-like virus isolated in an African village; after Daniels is taken off the assignment and the virus invades the United States, he learns some hard truths about how our government is run. Serious material as commercial entertainment; those hoping for a more intellectual or subdued approach to this topic will be disappointed, for the film is designed as a thriller for the masses and not as a docudrama. It's well-produced and gripping, yet one wonders how seriously the filmmakers are actually taking it. Hoffman (miscast, but personable and ingratiating) leads a strong cast including Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, and Cuba Gooding Jr. (terrific as Hoffman's assistant). **1/2 from ****

Shoddy

[Spleen · 5/10 · 2 August 1999]

Some history:

Columbia outbid Warner Brothers for the film rights to the non-fiction book "The Hot Zone", and got to work on a script entitled, "Crisis in the Hot Zone". Warner Brothers shrugged its shoulders and decided to make a competing killer disease film NOT based on the book; and so they got together a script, director and cast as quickly as possible in the hopes of getting "Outbreak" to cinema screens first. After a brief tussle Columbia realised the fight wasn't worth it, and backed out. "Crisis in the Hot Zone" was never made.

Probably a pity, for "Outbreak" shows every sign of being conceived in haste. For a film about one of the most terrifying scenarios available - the new Black Death - it's surprisingly unfrightening. Try to remain calm, is the tag-line. You won't have to try very hard.

The screenwriters - and let's not blame them, since I suspect that they had but a single weekend in which to write it all - sprinkle the film with tiresome clichés I won't bother to mention - not that this matters very much. The real problem is that things are done just too easily. By the end of the film Dustin Hoffman is leaping tall buildings in a single bound - which just makes us feel that the buildings couldn't have been so high, after all.

(A side point: why, yet again, is the United States the only thing that matters? The same new killer virus is already on the loose in Africa and could strike without warning elsewhere - why doesn't this worry anyone?)

Basically this is another movie killed by undue haste. The director does his job reasonably well, the dialogue is uninspired but not clunky, and Dustin Hoffman has enough charisma to keep us interested in his character, at any rate. It's not really a bad movie. But Warner Brothers has slapped up any old thing and called it a taut thriller - and it certainly isn't that.

OK but never gets near its potential because of all its weaknesses

[bob the moo · 19 July 2004]

When a deadly virus decimates an African village, the US authorities attempt to draw a line under the incident and take the line that a reoccurrence is unlikely. However, a monkey has become a carrier for the virus and has reached the US. When Jimbo Scott smuggles the monkey out to sell to a pet store, he is infected and spreads it to others. Eventually the local town of Cedar Creek becomes overrun and the US form a barricade around the town. With the politicians planning the destruction of the town to stop the virus spreading, Col Sam Daniels and his team race to find some other way of stopping it.

Whether you viewed in back in 1995 or now, where the threat of viral attack doesn't seem so unlikely, this film should be gripping on the basis of the material. At points it does have good moments but generally this generally suffers from trying to do too much and having a script that cannot control its subject. For most of the film the virus is almost a concept rather than a real threat and it talks a lot without really delivering. Even when an entire town is quarantined and dying, it all remains very calm where really it needed fear and panic to seep into every character and every scene. Sadly it doesn't do this and the film bogs itself down in personal infections, squabbling ex-partners and so on – did we need the main characters to get the virus? Wasn't it enough for an entire town to be dying and for the world to be at risk? Anyway, at the midpoint the film suddenly becomes an action movie with helicopter chases and a plot that can best be summed up as 'catch the monkey'.

Even with this section, the flaws are rife – the action bits are OK but it seems unlikely that finding a monkey somewhere in the US would be a more complicated task! This is not to say that it isn't entertaining because it just about manages to be enjoyable enough, but nowhere near the potential that this had. Part of the reason is a plot that struggles from logic gaps and a lack of intelligence and urgency. The lack of intelligence comes from the film completely ignoring the moral complexities that come with such a situation – the film ignores the fact that bad things may need to be done to stop the virus and instead just paints good guys (save the people) and bad guys (bomb the people). The lack of urgency comes from the failure to really make the virus a threat; really I needed Cedar Creek to become the US in miniature – having everyone calm didn't do it for me and I needed more than just two cars making a break for it. But then the writing generally isn't up to the task and the heavy dialogue is pretty average at best with clichéd lines and far too much 'personal' stuff between the main characters.

Even the main 'bad' guy is a fudge as it just paints everything black and white.

Another reason that this doesn't live up to its potential is the sheer numbers of faces in the film. Hoffman makes a strange action star but he does OK with what little he is given. Russo is no good at all and happily has little to do but deliver the personal 'involvement' that the film cannot manage to deliver any other way. Gooding is pretty good in a semi-action role and Spacey has some good lines before he too becomes a cheap emotional device. Sutherland gives a by the numbers performance as he has nothing to really work with, but Freeman is more interesting because he does. It's just a shame that this talented cast were not used better in this film. An aside that was interesting to me was that Dale Dye has a minor role in the film while also serving as military adviser to the film. He is an interesting man because his career has grown from adviser to being a reasonable actor to becoming a writer, producer and (recently) a 2nd unit director – clearly a motivated and talented man who it would be interesting to listen to talk sometime.

Overall the potential is there but it is unrealised. The cast are great on paper but have nothing to work with in a script that delivers average dialogue, no real characters, no moral ambiguities, no real involvement and no sense of scale or threat. It does have some pace at times and it has enough 'OK' moments to be worth watching maybe once but I was annoyed that the potential of the material alone was missed. I think the film can be summed up by the ending – one minute we have an exciting helicopter stand off and the next we have a pay-off that is so lazy and so simplistic that I was actually visibly annoyed by it. Passable entertainment if you are in an undemanding mood but it never even gets near the potential it had.

If the story had been more believable, this would have been a very good movie

[philip_vanderveken · 7/10 · 7 July 2005]

Next to big volcano's erupting, hurricanes and other twisters, diseases are an excellent source of inspiration for the creators of disaster movies. Why? The answer is quite simple. We all know that diseases like Ebola and AIDS haven't always been among us, but that they were present somewhere on this planet. We don't know how it suddenly finds us, but it does. And since most of us are very scared of the unknown and we can be pretty sure that not everything has been discovered yet, movies based on this subject can be quite believable and scary.

When a new deadly disease is discovered in Africa, Colonel Sam Daniels of the U.S. Army is sent to investigate it. As soon as he returns he warns his boss, General Ford, that they should put out an alert on this virus, even though it is far away from the USA and not airborne. General Ford refuses, since it is contained and unlikely to show up. But what both men don't know is that a monkey, carrying the deadly virus with him, has been captured and is being shipped to the USA, where a man who works at the customs house takes it and tries to sell it to a pet store. But when the sale isn't closed, the man doesn't know what to do with the monkey and releases it in the woods near a small town in California. A few days later the man collapses and dies in Baltimore and at the same time a new outbreak is starting in that little Californian town. Colonel Daniels, his team and his ex-wife will do anything possible to find a cure so they can save the population from being bombed by the military, but what they don't know is that there may have been a cure all along...

Overall the story of this movie certainly isn't bad, but sometimes I started to find it all a bit too much. A new disease that mutates, that's possible. The army that wants to know more about it, there is nothing new about that. But than talking about military conspiracies, a president who wants to bomb his own people... that one I really didn't buy. And that's too bad, because I'm convinced that this could be a very powerful movie, if only they should have left out a couple of elements. Still, that's about the worst thing that I have to say about this movie. The acting for instance is OK. With people like Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland,... they have found themselves a very nice cast, which may well be the best reason why you should watch this movie, even when you aren't a fan of disaster movies (like me).

But not only the acting looks OK, so does the direction. With a man like Wolfgang Petersen, I immediately have some high expectations of course. He's the man that gave the world the ultimate submarine movie "Das Boot" and that always makes me hope for the best. Even though this movie never reaches to that extremely high level, it sure is better than average. The man still knows how to create the necessary tension and how to keep you interested. So, if it hadn't been for the not always so effective story, this movie would have scored very high on my list. Now I give it a 6.5/10 (which certainly isn't bad).

Decent plot but more of a predictable execution!!

[sauravjoshi85 · 6/10 · 9 June 2022]

Outbreak is a medical disaster film directed by Wolfgang Petersen. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey and Patrick Dempsey.

A deadly virus carried by a monkey created a havoc in a small American town, few scientists struggle to find the cure.

This film has now undoubtedly got a fresh popularity primarily due to the ongoing pandemic but somewhat is my opinion the film doesn't excites that much maybe because the film is majorly predictable with illogical scenes or situation. There are some scenes that capture the real life scenarios perfectly such as lockdown and people refusing to follow the health guideline and so on but apart from them there is not much exciting in the film.

The acting is good and all the cast did a superb job, the screenplay of the film was majorly predictable and doesn't excites much, the climax of the film ends on happy ending.

Overall a decent film which could've been much better if the director and the screenplay writer would've tried something new but still can be watched once.

Virus and Secrets

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 17 April 2020]

Colonel Dr. Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) has just divorced from his wife Robby Keough (Rene Russo), who works at the CDC. Out of the blue, he is assigned by his superior General Billy Ford (Morgan Freeman) to investigate a lethal disease in an African village with his crew formed by the scientist Casey Schuler (Kevin Spacey) and Major Dr. Salt (Cuba Gooding Jr.). They are impressed by the disease and Colonel Daniels reports to General Ford his findings afraid of contamination in the USA. However General Ford tells that the disease kills so fast that would never reach their country. However, an African smuggled monkey carrier of the disease is brought to USA and the customs employee Jimbo Scott (Patrick Dempsey) unsuccessfully tries to sell the animal. He releases the monkey in the woods and spreads the disease in the beginning of an outbreak in a small town in California. Now Colonel Daniels, his ex-wife and their teams must fight the invisible enemy while Colonel Daniels discovers dark secrets from his superior General Donald McClintock (Donald Sutherland).

"Outbreak" is an entertaining thriller directed by Wolfgang Petersen with a great cast. The dramatic situation of an outbreak is relieved by the action scenes. Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo do not show any chemistry and the situation when Colonel Daniels takes his mask out is ridiculous. But it is worthwhile watching "Outbreak". My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Epidemia" ("Outbreak")

With a cast this great, it HAS to be good...

[Tito-8 · 10/10 · 18 January 1999]

This film was everything that many action thrillers are not. For one, the action really was thrilling at times. The story was well written and directed, and for a film that wasn't really "over the top" by action movie standards, there were many tense moments to enjoy. But what struck me the most was the cast. I mean, this is about as good a list of actors that you will ever find in one movie, and they all deliver, just as you would expect from all this talent. It's truly one of the most exciting movies that I've seen in some time.

Whoever Decided To Turn This Into An Action Thriller Made The Wrong Choice

[sddavis63 · 6/10 · 2 November 2012]

I chose to rent this on the basis of its very strong cast. Headed by Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman (who also do well) the movie also included names like Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Donald Sutherland. With names like that I had to assume at the very least that the performances would be strong. For the most part they were, although Sutherland came off as a little bit flat in the role of General McClintock - which I think had less to do with Sutherland and was more the result of his character being too one dimensional. Otherwise the cast was fine.

The story revolved a virus that originated in Africa in the 1960's and was finally spread to the US by an imported monkey released into the forests of California. The disease spreads as far as Boston, but is more or less contained in the small town of Cedar Creek, California. The disease is obviously a threat, and there's a race going on to find a cure for it before it spreads throughout America and maybe the world. Hoffman played Col. Daniels - an Army doctor trying to figure this out; Freeman was his friend and superior Gen. Ford.

When the focus of the movie was on the fight against the disease, this was pretty good. I might compare it a little bit to the more recently released "Contagion." The disease in that movie seemed far more threatening, but that movie got bogged down in medical jargon and turned into a lacklustre medical mystery. "Outbreak" avoided being lacklustre and didn't seem to be trying to impress anyone by using big medical terms. I found the fight against this disease more gripping than the battle in "Contagion." The two movies also share a similar plot point about the motives of the government.

Where "Outbreak" fails is at the point that it chooses to become little more than an action thriller (basically the last 30-40 minutes) which eventually gets reduced to little more than an extended helicopter chase. That was well done, but it went on far too long and after a while I just wanted to get on with the story.

It's a big problem when you find the last half hour of a movie to be rather dull. And yet, up to that point it was doing a pretty good job with its basic story, and, frankly, I enjoyed watching this more than I enjoyed watching "Contagion." (6/10)

It could/should have been so much better...

[cinematic_aficionado · 5/10 · 14 May 2006]

I actually enjoyed Outbreak from the start although form the first few minutes you could tell it's a B+ movie at the very best.

However the enjoyment diminished dramatically when the good old fashioned Hollywood recipe of the one man army/hero who ignores laws, regulations, procedures, and simply does what comes to his head prevailed.

It did not come as a surprise because it seemed rather odd the fact that you have a VERY GOOD cast (Hoffman, Sunderland, Spacey, Gooding) and whilst I was holding the case at the DVD retailer I noticed the complete lack of press appraisal…or at least there's none in the UK packaging of the film. It might seem an unusual thought but it is very true.

Apart from that it was enjoyable in the very mild sense of the word. Another example that proves how good ingredients (director + cast + storyline) do not always make the perfect recipe.

This film hits a little harder in 2021

[cricketbat · 8/10 · 9 September 2021]

Maybe it's just because this story hits harder in 2021, but I found Outbreak to be a very compelling drama. It begins on a very ominous note, and then that brooding feeling builds throughout the movie as the virus spreads. Yes, there's some unrealistic science and yes, there are some plot-driven conveniences, but I still found myself filled with dread at certain moments and I kept hoping a solution would be found.

Overlong, but the entertainment value is solid

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 30 September 2016]

A medical thriller dealing with the all-too-real threat of unstoppable plague, this film has a good premise alongside Hollywood-style execution. For me, the best parts of the film were where we see how the virus spreads among the unsuspecting - a scratch, a sneeze, or a cough. In the film's most celebrated sequence, a carrier coughs into a packed cinema, and we watch the particles zoom through the air before being inhaled by somebody who should have kept their mouth shut. This method of "quiet death" is extremely frightening and believable, and makes you feel like locking your doors and staying inside for the rest of your life.

Elsewhere, it's business as usual, with a shouty Dustin Hoffman running around ignoring his superiors and doing his darnedest to try and save lives. The reliable Morgan Freeman appears as Hoffman's long-suffering superior, while Donald Sutherland makes the best of his villainously evil role. In fact, he's so good at it that I'm surprised he hasn't been cast more frequently as the bad guy - but then again his over the top performance in VIRUS may be the reason why. Rene Russo is around to provide a love interest and a woman in peril, and a pre-fame Kevin Spacey is good in the small role of a virologist who has a nasty accident in the lab.

The problem with this film is it's length: at two hours plus, it does drag at some points during the middle of the film. Some of the sentimentalising between Hoffman and Russo could easily have been chopped without harming the flow of the film. Thankfully, things regain interest with the action-filled finale, with Hoffman and Cuba Gooding, Jr. getting into a helicopter fight with the evil Sutherland and trying to deliver the vaccine before the town gets nuked. You can guess the ending (this is a Hollywood film, you see) but it's still pretty exciting. Horror fans should come along for the ride to witness a different kind of horror, and there are plenty of diseased bodies laying around to make you feel ill. This is a good example of a thriller with a different premise, only spoiled slightly by the excessive length. A good Saturday night slice of entertainment.

Watching this will kill more brain cells than any virus.

[oneguyrambling · 4/10 · 17 February 2012]

For years I avoided this film like… well… the plague. My inner critic informed me that it was just more Hollywood pap purpose built for the guileless and those less discerning. I should listen to my inner critic more… Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman), Casey (Kevin Spacey) and Saul (Cuba Gooding Jr) are a team of highly trained (and Oscar winning) army scientists. When they identify that an extremely lethal and highly contagious virus known as the Motaba strain has somehow made it to the continental United States they immediately relay news of the threat up the line of management. Only it seems that for some reason the powers that be – among whose numbers are Billy (Morgan Freeman) and McClintock (Donald Sutherland) – ain't listening, despite all the evidence, scientific graphs, diagrams and powerpoint charts that practically demand to the audience that they should.

By the way all of the above have perfectly legitimate army ranks, but in a film this silly I like to refer to them as Sam, Billy and co… Sam thinks that this new virus is reeeeeelllll bad, he tells his ex Robbie (Rene Russo), who is now a civilian scientist. Robbie initially ignores him just as Billy did, but when some gooey, pus-filled evidence oozes his way into her view she becomes more sympathetic to his claims, yet even with the mounting body count Billy and his superiors stubbornly dig in their heels, place their fingers in their ears and sing "la-la-la-la-la-laaaaaa" to drown out the facts – even when a small town in *gasp* heartland America becomes threatened by mass contagion.

Sam, Saul and Casey show up and start dispensing with both assistance and claims that things will only get worse to anyone who will listen – which appears to be no-one. Billy arrives on the scene to demand no more talk about this bizarre cover-up, and a cast of mostly good (and in many cases award winning) actors wallow in this mediocrity for another 90 minutes of ennui.

As Sam and Saul go to increasingly great lengths to solve the case and find the cure things get altogether nonsensical, especially once they realise the 'carrier' is a tiny illegal immigrant monkey from Africa, lost somewhere in one of the 50 some landlocked states.

As the virus mutates, morphs and generally becomes more aggressive, the 'management' spout speeches and assorted tripe with buzzwords like 'quarantine', 'containment' and 'eradication', and even if Cuba Gooding Jr said "Show me the monkey!" I wouldn't have been surprised.

Alas he didn't, as it might have given me my one and only chuckle in this interminably long and exponentially sillier dross. Another clichéd button pusher purpose built to scare the gormless and all too trusting.

I recently watched Daylight, another carefully calculated Hollywood built manipulator designed to provoke a response. But that was actually quite well done, a thousand times better than this microscopic bug driven crap. So instead of saying I'd rather watch Daylight a dozen times rather than this I'll say I'd rather watch any of Sly's crappier films a dozen times than this again… OK maybe not 'Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot'…

Final Rating – 4.5 / 10. If you can't guess that I think this film sucks by now I don't know what to tell you. So instead of a neat summation I'll merely add this fun fact: Kevin Spacey rocks the worst dyed wig of any actor I think I have ever seen in this movie.