This is a tale about a virus that is more deadly than it initially seems. While it's nice to see some new movies tap into the popular disaster movie motif of the 1970's, the plot itself seems a little ailing in places and may need to be put down. So put on your bio-suits with me and let's open this patient up and pray to humanity we find some signs of life.

PANDEMIC is the story of the tiny New Mexico town of Diablo, the least-populated county in the nation, which may be a happy accident when you consider that this film is about a highly contagious disease... or is it? The action primarily centers on Dr. Sidney Stevens, a young, pretty veterinarian who discovers that horses and livestock are dying needlessly bloody, convulsive and mysterious deaths. When the same thing starts happening to the citizens of Diablo, she contacts the county coroner, Dr. Janet Green, and together they start unraveling clues. At least they try.

In no time whatsoever the military show up, and they start blocking all internet and phone communication with the rest of the world. Answers are few and far between and frustrations are many, at least until Sindney makes contact with the town's resident anti-government nut and stereotypical hippie, Clay Spencer. Spencer claims that the pandemic is no natural occurrence, but a deliberate creation of the government to test the nation's readiness in case of a biological attack. Of course, Sidney struggles not to believe him, but when they are suddenly followed everywhere by soldiers in Hummers, the real truth of the matter is more savage yet deliberate than either one of them had dared to suspect.

This is a solid viewing, but I wouldn't exactly call it an infectious pleasure. The film could have ended twenty minutes before it did and would have made significantly more sense. I don't want to give away the ending, but it seems the military succeeds in "quarantining" a certain problem (not the virus), and rather than sterilizing it at once as all moments of this movie would have you expect them to, they engage in lots of ideological dialogue and, needless conversations of military responsibility to the greater good, political posturing and all the counter-move subterfuge one would expect from a Tom Clancy movie. At the film's conclusion, the problem is all but eliminated even as it is forever set out of control with the usual open-ended finale of any good movie where the killer may not be dead after all.

PANDEMIC is grisly and the budget computer effects detailing the first victim's last moments of life were very good, but the real malaise was that the plot was teeming with the disease of subplots, secret character histories revealed in the eleventh hour, and padding the ending in ways I have not seen since LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING. I hate forced, needless dialogue used as narration just to explain the plot to the home viewer. This film should have ended with a kill shot from a rifle or an antidote shot from a syringe long before its conclusion.

Sinferno Says...
Yucko/Neato Factor: Fresh concept for a film. Viruses make the perfect modern, invisible high science monster of the age and they are sorely underused in realistic (non-zombie) dramas.
Production Values: All the characters looked just like you would expect them to. The military occupation was limited to a handful of men. Good thing this was the smallest town in the US! Hey MTI, don't send me REVIEW COPIES with consistent screen crawls throughout the duration of the film stating such. It's not like I put a link to my reviews in my actual reviews, do I?
Realism: The virus was an efficient, methodical killer. The Military was not.
Value for Price: Because there is no direct retail outlet from MTI I used Amazon pricing. This film is available anywhere from $4.95 to $22.49. For $4.95 I give it a...
Plot: This one tried to have all the elements that audiences of such things demand (except for a focal love story), but as I actually found myself rooting for the virus over most of the human victims, I can't say that they made me care as they should have.