THE QUEST FOR THE MOST ’90s FILM OF ALL TIME
Outbreak

In the mid-’90s, we were largely at peace with the world, and the economy was beginning to flourish. So where could we get movie ideas if not theoretical doomsday scenarios? During my pre-teen years, there was a mini-boom of epidemic stories: The Stand, Virus, 12 Monkeys, Outbreak, the unrelated Robin Cook novel Outbreak, the Outbreak novelization I accidentally read*, my seventh grade’s reading of The Andromeda Strain, and my seventh grade’s contagion of lice. So try to help me quarantine my contagious excitement as I infect you with…keep reading please.

STARS/PERFORMANCES
- Actors Who Are Unquestionably Tied to the Decade- Rene Russo [+10]
Russo had a remarkable run on the mid-’90s A-list, then she turned forty-five and went away. Once you have sex on a stairwell with Pierce Brosnan, you’re counting the days. In Outbreak, directed by Wolfgang Petersen*, she is ending a rocky relationship with Dustin Hoffman, which you can tell because he rings the doorbell and, instead of acknowledging him, she mumbles something about when he’s going to pick up his boxes [+2]. So icy. We’re obviously supposed to side with him though, because he takes care of two dogs, and she doesn’t seem to care about them [+1].

It’s not a good time to be splitting up, however, because they are military scientists on the ground floor of a dangerous airborne virus that is spreading across the United States.

- Other Notable Actors/Characters- Patrick Dempsey [+5] and Cuba Gooding, Jr. [+5]
The virus began in 1968 in a remote African village. We bombed this village to stop the spread of the virus—a wise holy man warned us it was a bad idea [+1]—but some monkey carriers survived. Pre-plastic surgery Patrick Dempsey, playing a metalhead, tries to sell one to a pet store, and all hell breaks loose [+2]. We’re treated to a sequence of people looking half-dead but muttering, “I just need some water I’ll be fine I just…” and then collapsing and dragging everything in their vicinity with them as they fall, just to make it more dramatic [+3].

Cuba plays a particularly green soldier, and the movie falls into the post-Boyz N the Hood, pre-Jerry Maguire period when you had to take him seriously as an actor. Thank God we don’t have to worry about that anymore. He helps Dustin Hoffman to get around the bureaucracy that is stopping them from really getting to the bottom of stopping the disease. We even get a Donald Sutherland “You’re off the case for no reason!” scene [+2]. Kevin Spacey is in this too, and that’s all I’ll write about that, since I’ve been saving a “Why I Hate Kevin Spacey” column [+1].


“Wait, how many free hours do you get? That’s a sensational deal!”

You’re supposed to feel bad for all of the people who catch this deadly ebola-variation, but, especially at first, it seems as if people catch it because they’re bad at their jobs. The pet store owner gets scratched by the monkey because he’s handling it wrong. A scientist analyzing the blood isn’t paying attention, and blood splashes onto him. You kind of deserve to end up collapsing into a full wall of aquariums, dude.

TECHNOLOGY/CULTURAL RELICS
- Could the Plot Reasonably Occur with Current Technology?
Probably, although you would be able to get the word out about the threat quicker [-10]. In fact, Steven Soderbergh is testing the idea as we speak.

- Hacking/Computers, Other Technological Notes
Everyone uses landlines [+1], and we have some weird Macintosh monitor/CPU combo units [+1]. The best moment comes when Spaceman is typing a document on a bigass laptop, and Hoffman, after approving it, goes, “Fax it to headquarters.” [+2]. You didn’t want to involve the post office, Rain Man?

-Other
One of my favorite moments in the whole film was at the one-hour mark, when the screenwriters realized, “Damn, we haven’t had any action in a long time,” so they wrote in a scene in which a quarantined family—whom we haven’t met or connected with before this scene—tries to escape martial law and starts a wild chase ending in a victim-less explosion. [+3]


Freeman doesn’t have much to do here. But he does have a penchant of starting every line with the name of the character he’s talking to [+1].

FASHION
Compared to what we’ve been working with, the wardrobes are pretty subdued. Rene Russo ties some deep flannel around her waist in one scene, because that’s an attractive look [+2].

’90s FILM CONVENTIONS
Zoom in on That Because It’s Important [+1]

Movie Begins with a Quotation [+3]
In this case: “The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus.” Oh, good. Now I know I’m watching a serious movie about serious shit. Because it starts with words.

Unnecessary Datelines and Titles [+3]
Another reason you know this is a serious movie with huge stakes is that we’re always told where we are, even when it’s obvious or irrelevant. In a lab, we’re treated to a superimposed title of “Known agents: pnemococcus, salmonella.” So helpful that I know which specific things we’re dealing with.

Flying a Helicopter Is Easy [+5]
The Phrase “Stand Down” [+5]

OTHER
At a certain point, we know everything is going to work out, and the movie feels anti-climactic. So why should my write-up of it be any different? Outbreak scored an underwhelming 49, putting it just ahead Kindergarten Cop at the bottom of the standings.

*- Prince of all media.
*- How many chances has Wolfgang Petersen gotten? “Give him a hundred million dollars. It might be like Das Boot.”