Leofwine_draca A medical thriller dealing with the all-too-real threat of unstoppable plague, this film has a good premise but only average execution. For me, the best parts of the film were where we see how the virus spreads among the unsuspecting - a scratch, a sneeze, or a cough. In the film's most celebrated sequence, a carrier coughs into a packed cinema, and we watch the particles zoom through the air before being inhaled by somebody who should have kept their mouth shut. This method of "quiet death" is extremely frightening and believable, and makes you feel like locking your doors and staying inside for the rest of your life.Elsewhere, it's business as usual, with a miscast Dustin Hoffman running around ignoring his superiors and doing his darnedest to try and save lives. The reliable Morgan Freeman appears as Hoffman's long-suffering superior, while Donald Sutherland makes the best of his villainously evil role. In fact, he's so good at it that I'm surprised he hasn't been cast more frequently as the bad guy - but then again his over the top performance in VIRUS may be the reason why. Rene Russo is around to provide a love interest and a woman in peril, and as always I can't stand her performance. A pre-fame Kevin Spacey is good in the small role of a virologist who has a nasty accident in the lab.The problem with this film is it's length: at two hours plus, it really drags at some points during the middle of the film. Some of the boring sentimentalising between Hoffman and Russo could easily have been chopped without harming the flow of the film. Thankfully, things regain interest with the action-filled finale, with Hoffman and Cuba Gooding, Jr. getting into a helicopter fight with the evil Sutherland and trying to deliver the vaccine before the town gets nuked. You can guess the ending (this is a Hollywood film, you see) but it's still pretty exciting. Horror fans should come along for the ride to witness a different kind of horror, and there are plenty of diseased bodies laying around to make you feel ill. This is a good example of a thriller with a different premise, only spoiled by the excessive length. A good Saturday night slice of entertainment.

sanjayasantoso I really really amazed by how many stars played in this movie, it's great to see that... Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr., Patrick Dempsey, and Donald Sutherland, all of them in a movie?? I never imagined that... The story itself just usual like the other movies that tells about the end of the world... And the ending itself just standard, a little disappointing I think, because it just looks like this movie just want the main character not dead, they're not telling how the other people that sick can be cured so easily like that... But overall, I should give a thumbs up to Wolfgang Petersen for having so many stars, especially Oscar winners, in this movie...

2karl- so we have a film that the virus is the star but the cast is superb carrying a deadly virus that had no known cure so deadly that it causes severe bleeding and liquefies internal organs, killing within 3 days. with The film cast includes four Oscar winners: Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey' and Cuba Gooding Jr.. so in 60s in Zaire In a valley called motaba valley where a river was there were little monkeysThe virus kills everyone wipes out Motaba River Valley so with the army dropping a Hugh fireball bomb in order to get rid of the..Extreme measures are necessary to contain an epidemic of a deadly airborne virus. But how extreme, exactly? so in order to study the virus we in a laboratory in fort detrick study all disease where see .27 years later, there is another outbreak in Zaire in 1994, there is another outbreak in Motaba River Valley. At the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), located at Fort Detrick in Maryland,.Dustin Hoffman plays a feisty virologist Colonel Sam Daniels is doing research on the Motaba virus, and so is his ex-wife Roberta Keough, who works at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. A monkey carrying the Motaba virus stows away on a boat illegal carried for a pet shop owner jumbo played by a young Patrick Dempsey gets sick from being in contact with the monkey and because it airborne the the virus spread rapidly so when doctors don't know whats going the call every one Rene Russo plays acharacter called Robby Keough as love interest to Hoffman's character she study all these diseases she is given a good script a another young cast member Kevin Spacy is brilliant is a doctor with a wicked sense of humour but the two main characters who have their finger on the trigger literally they play off each other Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland seem to be having fun with the material and things they are the good and the bad but the two Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland seem to be having fun with the material and things get interested when they clash at the end. The film,is thrilling (e.g a spectacular helicopter chase and an attempt to break out of the quarantined town in California two generals there's going to be conflicts as when one finds away to help people they clash as when Cuba gooding character major salt helps out with Sam's ideas they have to evade every one and anyone to get what they want including get in the way of direct orders gets on board with and get interested when they clash at the end. But overall this film is brilliant, I strongly advise everyone tries to watch this. it isn't everyone's cup of tea but is still a brilliant edge of the seat

Wuchak THE PLOT: After a deadly incurable African virus is brought to a Northern California coastal town via a monkey, the military moves in to quarantine the village. While Dustin Hoffman seeks to find an antidote, the two generals in charge of the quarantine (Morgan Freeman & Donald Sutherland) strangely decide to annihilate the town. Can Hoffman find a cure in time? And, even if he does, can he stop the firebombing? I remember when Wolfgang Petersen's "Outbreak" came out in 1995; the idea just never interested me. Big mistake, because this is an outstanding picture. Although viruses are so small they're invisible, they have the potential to be the biggest monsters of all. Certain deadly viruses, if let loose, can easily wipe out an entire town in a mere couple days. This is the scenario in "Outbreak." It could happen and is therefore realistic, which naturally makes the story more horrifying than most horror flicks or monster movies.But "Outbreak" is more than just a scary what-if story, the second half involves a military cover-up and is edge-of-your-seat suspenseful, all the way to the final minutes. It's like an avalanche that slowly builds momentum.Cuba Gooding Jr. is also on hand in a significant role as Hoffman's partner in the race-against-time. And, for those who care, there's a romantic subplot about Hoffman and his ex-wife Rene Russo. Will they get back together? The locations are magnificent, filmed in the coastal towns Eureka, Arcata and Ferndale, California, all in the extreme Northern part of the state, just South of the Redwoods and West of Bigfoot territory (i.e. Willow Creek). The African sequences were filmed in Hawaii.BOTTOM LINE: This is top-of-the-line cinema -- equal parts scary, dramatic and suspenseful.GRADE: A-