The Andromeda Strain

1971
Directed by:
Robert Wise

Based on the novel by Michael Crichton

Cast:
Arthur Hill - Dr. Jeremy Stone
David Wayne - Dr. Charles Dutton
James Olson - Dr. Mark Hall
Kate Reid - Dr. Ruth Leavit


Robert Wise of The Sound of Music renown has set his sights on science fiction in this adaptation of a popular novel to the silver-screen. As in both instances an alien entity threatens life on earth and a select group must disarm it at the expense of great personal risk. This time a seemingly harmless satellite has crashed to earth in the remote New Mexico Desert. A military team is sent to retrieve the item which is currently (and remarkably unscathed) near a very small quiet town. But the town is abnormally too quiet - even for the dead of night. Before the team knows what has hit them all radio contact is lost and they are presumed dead. A flyby later confirms that the entire town has literally stopped in its tracks. People are lying around everywhere like it is the morning after New Years. But no signs of celebration are to be found.
A select team of scientists and a doctor is called in. “Wildfire” has been declared which is what we learn to be code for a potentially dangerous bio-hazardous situation posed by an unknown or alien biological agent. This picture was made during the time of the first lunar landings so contamination from a possibly alien and even totally unstoppable pathogen from space or the moon was a real concern. It is much like our modern fear of terrorists using biological weapons.
In any case, the team is called to a secret installation in the Nevada desert built specifically for containing and studying such hostile alien germs. There are rumors that this secret base was built for the possible use and development of alien germs to be used in bio-warfare - though unfortunately this isn’t expounded upon in the movie.
In addition to the satellite the only two survivors of the towns catastrophe are brought to the base to study why they survived. The rest of the movie entails trying to figure out what the “andromeda strain” is.
The Andromeda Strain is a movie that is heavy on set and a little short on story. Through our tour of the facility, which follows the team’s sanitization process we learn more about the base than the actual characters who seem shallow and stereotyped. This unfortunately is what happens when too many novels are put into screen adaptations. Don’t get me wrong, the set is important - and this one is masterfully created but in this case the characters are sacrificed for the plot. This film unfortunately falls like so many from the habit of overemphasizing special effects and set for story. Spiderman III (though not based on a novel) is an example of this but other movies like the Harry Potter series seem to do a good job of balancing both.

2 stars