Review of The Andromeda Strain

The film is on a banal, very banal subject : the invasion of the earth by some extraterrestrial civilization. In this case the interesting element is the method used to take over, and clean up the planet of the human race that is kind of in the way. They use the curiosity of this human race and infiltrate a satellite that is devised to capture living and unknown extraterrestrial organisms or substances. It does crop one substance hat is living but with no DNA. That substance will cause the satellite to crash back on the earth, without being in any way damaged, which is quite hard to believe today. This satellite will be recuperated by some people in a close-by city, opened and the substance will spread and kill everyone except an alcoholic who uses methylated spirit to satisfy his thirst and a new-born baby. The objective is to cause an overreaction among the human collective body called society and for them humans to try to destroy this invading substance with a nuclear missile. And that's the trick. This substance is fed by nuclear radiations or feeds on nuclear radiations. This fact is discovered by the scientists who are trying to understand the phenomenon, the counter order is given to the pilot delivering the missile and she turns back, but it is too late: the substance had already invaded the plane and it took control of it and the missile will eventually reach its target and humanity will be destroyed entirely. All that because of the human vain belief that one single invention, destructive substance or mechanism can be supreme and destroy everything, which is false, and we know it, since cockroaches for one are not at all disturbed in their very busy life by nuclear radiations. What is surprising is that this film, done for TV, should be so poor on the characters as if television did not have the means to hire good authors, directors and actors any more. Too bad, indeed.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID