The Andromeda Strain
(1970)
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When a small space probe falls to earth in a remote village of New Mexico, all but two of the town's inhabitants--an infant and an old alcoholic--meet death as their blood turns to powder. After two reconnaissance pilots have also perished, a national state of emergency is declared. The two survivors and the recovered space probe are transported to a mammoth five-story underground laboratory, and a team of scientists--biologist Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill), microbiologist Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid), blood chemistry authority Mark Hall (James Olson), and pathologist Charles Dutton (David Wayne)--is swiftly brought to the lab to discover the nature of the deadly organism brought by the space probe. The team is subjected to gruelling hours of precautionary decontamination measures--which are filmed with extraordinary art direction in stunning monochromatic sequences--and informed that the laboratory complex is equipped with an automatic self-destruct device that will be triggered should infection spread. Through exhaustive tests, the team learns that the minute organism, dubbed the ANDROMEDA STRAIN, is alien in nature, and the scientists must quickly find a cure before all of humanity is wiped out. Quietly thrilling, with superb pacing from director Robert Wise, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, based on the novel by Michael Crichton, is one of the most stylistically beautiful science fiction films ever made. |
Over 20 years before Jurassic Park, this super combination of hi-tech thrills and against-the-clock suspense was the first Michael Crichton novel to be adapted for the big screen. Robert Wise's near-documentary direction keeps tension mounting as desperate scientists race to isolate a fatal alien virus from a fallen satellite. More science fact than fiction, and still powerfully relevant, it's a remarkably faithful account of Crichton's biological invasion bestseller, layered with sophisticated special effects by Douglas Trumbull, who had helped Stanley Kubrick towards a special effects Oscar two years earlier for 2001: a Space Odyssey.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Solemn and over-detailed but generally suspenseful thriller, with a sense of allegory about man's inhumanity to man.