Battle of the Blockbusters: Contagion vs The Flu

"There was nothing they could do to stop...The Flutagion!"

Christ, it's been a month since I reviewed a movie; and nearly two since I reviewed a horror film. The fuck is going on around here? This will not do, this will not do at all. To rectify the situation, I bring you yet another new kind of post where I pit two similar movies against each other and force them to battle to the death, Star Trek style.

No modified kayak paddles were harmed in the making of this article.

In the red corner we have Contagion, the 2011 disaster thriller about Gwyneth Paltrow fucking everyone's shit up by eating badly cooked pig. In the blue corner is Flu/Gamgi, South Korea's 2013 answer to that other film I just mentioned.

The idea here will be to look at both movies side by side, pick out their similarities and differences and eventually name one of them the ultimate victor. Maybe I'll even come up with a suitable killing blow to the loser, something that would make Mortal Kombat proud.

Because if you've already punched off their frozen head, you might as well shatter their torso too.

Without further ado...

Round 1 - Characterisation

Both movies actually follow very similar structures to each other; almost too similar. It could be that using an ensemble cast works well for the disaster/pandemic genre of movie, but it strikes me as a little odd that two films that share so many similarities would also share a rather sparsely used narrative style. I used the more aesthetically pleasing poster for Flu up at the top there, but the other one is almost identical to Contagion's. Am I sensing a little bit of the ol' plagiarism going on here, Korea...?

Narrative structure isn't the only thing these two movies share either; the cast of characters is oddly similar. Both have a politician doing his darndest to keep the masses under control,

Everyone-

a doctor risking everything to find a cure,

-is always-

some random dude who gets caught up in all the shit going down around him,

-on the mother-fucking-

a daughter who's forever in danger of getting infected,

-phone!

and a bunch of evil people in suits who are waaay to comfortable with killing thousands of innocent citizens.

Evil don't need no phones.

Simply by the number of comparable characters I should give this round to Contagion seeing as they did it first, but Flu has a little trick up it's sleeve about the size of an adorable little girl. Seriously, just look at her.

I want to hug it!

LOOK AT HER.

She even has adorable kitchenware!

SHE'S SO FUCKING CUTE! GUH. I WANT ONE.

Flu wins.

Contagion: 0

Flu: 1

Round 2 - Visual Effects

Sometimes less is more when it comes to visual effects. With our two contenders we've got one that's stuck closely to that philosophy while the other took one glance at the dictionary entry for subtlety, said "Fuck it," and went ahead with making CGI cranes fling corpses into a mass grave.

"Damnit, I wanted the Hello Kitty doll. Pass me another 20p."

It doesn't look too bad in that screenshot but the effects are less than impressive in motion (a little too smooth and lacking in weight), particularly for a big-budget movie like Flu. Observe:

"Guys! Michael Bay is in the neighbourhood."

Contagion's effects are largely more on-screen physical effects, or at least less blatantly terrible CGI, than it's Korean counterpart, but is also on a whole a lot less ambitious. Flu has a man frantically searching for a missing child in a flaming mass grave while being chased by soliders in contamination suits,

This film is sponsored by the South Korean Board for Tourism.

while Contagion has a bat eating a banana.

Nom.

That said, whether you find Contagion's pace too slow or enjoy something a bit snappier is up to personal preference (and has no place in a round about how good it looks), so lets look at the effects at face value, regardless of their quantity. Flu is loud, exciting and has plenty to keep you interested, with a suitably gory looking disease and spectacularly ambitious sets to entice the viewer.

The flaming rodents come at no extra charge.

Contagion, on the other had, is much more down to Earth. There's no spewing up copious amounts of fake blood or silly Evil Dead-style point-of-view shot of the disease spreading every time a character sneezes. The effects that are there are mainly restricted to camera filters and very conservatively applied make-up, and frankly I feel like it's better for it. As much fun as it was watching flaming rats run all over the place, I feel like less is indeed more when it comes to the pandemic movie; at least until the inevitable moment when the army gets involved. 

One has a whole army, the other has Bryan Cranston. I can't decide which is more terrifying.

If Flu is the crazy, bug-riddled, hypnotic beauty of Android, then Contagion is the clinical, minimalist, pseudo-functionality of Apple which, for once, actually ends up being better for it. Shit, that was a bad analogy. I want to change my choice now. Fuck you Apple.

Contagion snatches a close victory in round two.

Contagion: 1

Flu: 1

Round 3 - Story/Overall Enjoyment

At last we come down to the final round. The decider. The mothership. The be all and end all. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the boss battle; the Ganon of film fights. Take your pick which Ganon.

Except this one.

Was it fun to watch? Regardless of all the typical review faffery and nit-picking, this is the most important question you've got to ask yourself when you finish a film and decide whether or not to recommend it to anyone else. The short answer for these two? Yes.

Like hell it is.

Let's open that question up a little more. What made these movies good? They were both exciting, tense, well paced and engaging to watch. From a very broad stance, they're almost equally as enjoyable. Where Contagion pulls ahead with a larger number of sympathetic characters and an ability to build a series of stories that feel connected in the same world, Flu brings it level again by upping the production values and throwing your favourite (and the most vulnerable) character into the fray, forcing you to watch while they try to navigate a minefield of blood-spewing disease victims and epic fist fights with razor wire.

My favourite bit in the whole film.

It's not enough to ask what makes them good, then, so how about what makes them less good? After all, it's way easier to whinge about stuff than it is to compliment it.

The biggest problem with both movies is actually the same in each of them: frustration. Let's go back to the aforementioned evil people. The bad guy is necessary in any movie because you need someone to create conflict; you need a force for the good guys to fight against. The thing with a pandemic is that apart from the disease itself, no-one really wants the world to be destroyed or for people to die; unless you happen to be in a movie, in which case there's someone who'll do their darnedest to drop trou and shit on everyone else for little to no reason.

Poop has never been spread so far by one person since kids learned finger painting.

In both films these shit-stirrers come almost exclusively in the form of politicians, senior scientists or army officials who fly in the face of the basic concept of "let's help people" and decide to restrict research for dubious safety reasons, weaponise the virus, refuse information to people who need it, just plain blow shit up or perform any number of other nefarious acts for no reason other than "screw smart people who probably know better". As far as I'm concerned though this doesn't help create conflict, it just becomes infuriating to watch particularly when, because this is a movie, the correct thing to do is blindingly obvious to everyone apart from this very select group of slimy fuckwits.

This guy is so oily I'm now officially a porn site in Saudi Arabia.

Flu sadly wins outright in this respect, managing to shoehorn in a message about the evils of the west alongside all of the bad decision making of the government. While the two English-speaking (and evidently Satan-worshipping) Westerners convince everyone else that genocide is the only option despite having just been presented with solid evidence that a cure is possible, the one person with the purity of heart and determination to do right by the people is, of course, the glorious president of Korea. This leads to the most painfully frustrating (and uncomfortably patriotic) last 15 minutes of a film since someone decided to record themselves playing Operation with their feet for 3 hours whilst farting the Star Spangled Banner.

Despite a rather anticlimactic ending, Contagion doesn't shoot itself in the foot with as much deadly accuracy as it's foreign counterpart and so, for that equally as anticlimactic a reason, I hand the final victory over to the Americans. Congratulations!

Contagion: 2

Flu: 1

Finish Him...

I think the only suitable punishment for Flu is quite clear to all of us: death by Monopoly. They have fun for the first few hours, but then they land on nothing but income tax and utilities until they slip softly into a rage coma and choke on a hotel.