Outbreak

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1995	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	123 minutes	Other Extras	Production Notes Cast & Crew Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	4	Director	Wolfgang Peterson
Distributor	Warner Brothers	Starring	Dustin Hoffman Rene Russo Morgan Freeman Cuba Gooding, Jr. Patrick Dempsey Donald Sutherland Kevin Spacey
RRP	$29.95	Music	James Newton Howard

    The movie stars the excellent Dustin Hoffman as Sam Daniels, a doctor who specializes in the management of outbreaks of rare but lethal tropical diseases. An outbreak of a mysterious and deadly disease occurs, initially in Motaba Valley Africa, but then it spreads to the small town of Cedar Creek USA. Sam and his military team make their way to Cedar Creek to assist the Center for Disease Control in their attempt to contain and treat this viral outbreak. Sam's team consists of Casey Schuler (Kevin Spacey) and Major Salt (Cuba Gooding, Jr.). The principal player for the CDC is Robby Keough (Rene Russo) who just happens to be Sam's ex-wife.

    Complicating the management of this outbreak is the military's desire to keep the outbreak secret. In particular, General Donald McClintock (Donald Sutherland) and General Billy Ford (Morgan Freeman) who have a very nasty skeleton in their closet are keen to keep things under wraps, General McClintock to the extent of wanting to destroy the town and its 2600 inhabitants rather than have this particular skeleton dragged out.

    Overall, Outbreak is an excellent movie, combining a very believable scenario, presented with reasonable scientific accuracy, with copious helpings of action and suspense all in the one movie. This is helped in no small part by Dustin Hoffman's excellent and passionate portrayal of Sam Daniels. I felt that the only weak link in the film was Morgan Freeman, who seems terminally unable to do anything except look exceedingly uncomfortable on screen in this movie. I am used to seeing much better from him.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was not as sharp as I would have liked in some scenes, but wasn't too bad. Shadow detail was acceptable. No low level noise was apparent.

    The colours were well rendered and consistent throughout the movie, and I had no specific problems with this aspect of the transfer.

    Some MPEG artefacting was seen, generally consisting of small amounts of macro-blocking in the background, and one shot of an AWACS plane was very blocky. This intermittent background artefacting was a major contributor to the lack of sharpness in this movie. Perhaps the bit-rate should have been higher when this movie was being compressed to lessen this problem. It is never beyond the realm of just visible, but I can imagine that these artefacts would get worse with greater magnification of the image.

    Film-to-video artefacts were not a problem with this transfer.

    Film artefacts were relatively common early on in this movie, but then they settled down somewhat to become acceptably few and far between.

Audio

    Dialogue was placed in the centre channel, and was very clear almost all of the time.

    The music by James Newton Howard is suitably atmospheric, and enhances the mood of the movie nicely. It is frequently present.

     The surround channels were often used for music, ambience and special effects. I felt they could have been used a little more aggressively, but this is a minor complaint given that this soundtrack is quite enveloping overall. There is certainly quite an aggressive and wide front soundstage.

    The .1 channel was used for the music and the special effects. It does not work all that hard, but when it is used, it gives a nice kick to the soundtrack.

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Production Notes

Cast & Crew Biographies

    The video quality is mostly reasonable, but MPEG artefacts are visible at times leading to a less sharp picture than would be otherwise expected. English subtitles default to ON, which is an irritation.

    The audio quality is very good indeed, with a generally enveloping sound field being created which I felt could have done with a little more aggression in the surrounds.

    The extras are quite limited, but interesting nonetheless.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
18th January 1999