Although Contagion boasts an impressive cast and a few genuinely intriguing moments, it lacks focus and feels as sterile as a haz-mat suit.

Don’t get me wrong, every actor has his/her shining moment at some point, but they are just glimmers of stars underneath a cloudy haze of messages, misguided plot-points and (admittedly interesting but unfortunately misplaced) exposition required to understand the film.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you have an upsettingly complete idea of what happens in the film. There really isn’t that much more to it. Yes, there are more characters that have more personal agendas, but does that really add to the story?

I couldn’t help but feel that Contagion was trying to tell me too much. It’s one thing to have a movie that effectively makes a point and quite another to have it stumble over itself to tell you everything that it knows about the world.

Yes, we live in a scary world teeming with microscopic villains that can’t wait to kill us. Yes, pharmaceutical companies are based in greed and have miles of red tape inherent in their modern system of operation. Yes, widespread illness would cause a Joker-esque “when the chips are down these civilized people will eat each other” scenario. Yes, print journalism is dying. Wait, there’s a whole segment devoted to internet media versus paper journalism?

Half of the cast sits pretty high on the A-list hog, so why did 80% of the scenes feel so synthetic and calculated? Glimpses of humanity were evident in scenes that involved Kate Winslet or Marion Cotillard, but for the majority of the film the exchanges between characters felt as sterile as a research laboratory.

How does this happen? How do you take a room full of magnificent actors (including Marion “the queen of heart” Cotillard) and make them less human than the virus that is slowly picking them off?

Maybe it was because we never got the opportunity to care for them. Character arcs are introduced seemingly just to make a statement (or pose a moral dilemma), and then when their point has been adequately displayed, the messenger is disposed by either killing off the characters or simply refusing to resolve the rest of the the character’s story.

Because of this attitude towards character development, the film lacked the human element and felt more like a documentary instead. If the intent was to make me aware of the constant viral threat that plagues human communication and cohabitation, then congratulations, pop the champagne, the film was a total success.

Hell, maybe this explains what seems more and more like the artistic choice to remove the humanity from the story and its characters.

The direction by Steven Soderbergh felt rushed and disjointed, but there are a few well crafted moments that are unfortunately overshadowed by the films many flaws.

When the film ended (the last twenty seconds are easily the most intriguing of the film’s running time) I felt rushed and unsatisfied. I was, however, very careful not to touch the handrails on the way out.