The Andromeda Strain (1971)

one of my absolute favorites!

Let's be realistic.

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Quite probably one of the greatest Sci Fi movies of all time. I will agree that it doesn't have any men running around in tights with capes, or explosions. But the script is tight and the acting top notch. If you don't like this you don't like real Sci Fi, go ahead and re-watch an Iron-Man or Captain America film, there're all alike anyway.

I loved this superb work, and got such a surprise when i first saw it. I would recommend that the reviews are not studied, in part because the film is best viewed as the story unfolds. I found the actors and dialogue so convincing, that i almost felt i was present during the key scenes. Having seen it at least three times, i cannot recommend it enough. Back in 1971 i found it more than educational, which was a nice bonus.

Based on a Michael Crichton novel, and directed by Robert Wise, "The Andromeda Strain" opens in the town of Piedmont, New Mexico, where locals have been killed by an extraterrestrial pathogen. The film's creepy opening scenes watch as members of the US government investigate Piedmont's corpse-strewn streets, their hazmat suits and telescopic lenses suggestive of overwhelming danger and invisible menace.Nothing else in "The Andromeda Strain" approaches the unnerving brilliance of its first act. Instead the film follows a group of scientists into an underground research facility. Here they attempt to identify, categorise and neutralise the alien virus. Unfortunately, like Wise's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1979), such scenes eventually get bogged down by lingering, Stanley Kubrick inspired shots of gear, computers and high-tech machinery. All superficial techno-details - Kubrick, in contrast, always blended metaphysics with the prosaic – Wise's aesthetic eventually sabotages what was once a promising premise.Wise directed "The Day the Earth Stood Still" in 1951, a scifi classic which reflected then contemporary fears of nuclear annihilation. A product of a different era, "The Andromeda Strain" (1971) plays like one of the decade's many anti-establishment, conspiracy thrillers. Paranoia becomes a survival mechanism, Nixon-era government officials conspire to drop bombs, and it is ultimately a secret military mission which delivers death on America's doorstep; whilst civilians nonchalantly go about their business, microscopic monsters scheme.7.5/10 – Worth one viewing. See "Contagion", "Day of the Dead", "Carriers", "The Crazies", "Rabid", "The Happening" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978).

Yeah. OK. I know that The Andromeda Strain (TAS, for short) was only a Sci-Fi movie (or was it more than just that?) - But, with that said, wasn't it just like the American government and their devoted Science/Military team, back in 1970, to send a satellite out into space with the sole purpose of bringing back to Earth an organism (hopefully) deadly enough to use in germ warfare against all of their enemies (especially the Russians)? Like, isn't that just the most awful-minded objective imaginable? And all of those naive, trusting American citizens who solemnly believe that their government really stands for truth, justice and liberty... Ha! What a deluded, laughable joke! Based on Michael Crichton's 1969 novel of the same name, TAS was, without a doubt, one very-Very-VERY (!!) s-l-o-w moving picture. At 130 minutes my interest in caring about whether the Wildfire Team found a way to contain the spread of the deadly virus brought back to Earth, or not, waned to the point where, after the first 45 minutes, I couldn't give a sweet-damn what the heck happened. In fact, I was so bored that I secretly began hoping that all hell would break loose with the "Andromeda" virus. But, damn it, nothing of the sort ever happened.One of the biggest disappointments about this "all-talk/no-action" Sci-Fi/Thriller was that way too much of its budget went into the construction of its science-lab sets. I found that not enough attention was paid to the creation of a really unique-looking micro-organism. All that this thing looked like to me (when magnified by 1500x) was just a run-of-the-mill piece of toxic-green crud.Anyways - I found TAS to be yet another one of those "countdown-to-disaster" movies that, unfortunately, took itself way-way too seriously for its own good. And, that, in turn, left its audience with a potentially promising story that was so cut-n-dry as to be completely void of any genuine thrills & chills.*Trivia note* - Andromeda is the name given to the nearby galaxy that's just beyond Earth's solar system. It also means "to think of man" in Greek.