Director: Robert Wise
Screenplay: Nelson Gidding
Based on the novel by: Michael Crichton
Cast: Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James Olson, Kate Reid, Paula Kelly, George Mitchell
Running time: 131 mins
Year: 1971
Certificate: PG
It’s hard to believe it’s been over five years since we all heard that fateful name on the news – COVID 19. When the UK went into lockdown during the pandemic in March of 2020, there was a sudden and somewhat macabre trend towards watching films that depicted the effects of such viral outbreaks; the likes of 12 Monkeys, Outbreak and, perhaps most bleakly, Contagion, a film often cited to realistically depict the worldwide spread of a virus, all became suddenly essential viewing. Perhaps a less bleak salve, however, would have been Robert Wise’s 1971 adaptation of Michael Crichton’s sci-fi pandemic novel, The Andromeda Strain.
The story starts with what is, in 2025, an even more chilling sight – an air force team sent to recover a downed satellite discovers a town full of bodies, all dead from a mysterious virus with the exception of two survivors; an elderly man and a baby. Believing the virus to be extraterrestrial in nature, the government triggers the mysterious project “Wildfire”, pulling together four specialist scientists to investigate the outbreak, discover the source and find a cure. Gathering in a secret underground base these four unlikely heroes must race against the clock to uncover the truth about the Andromeda Strain before it has a chance to spread into the wider world.
While I was familiar with the basic premise of The Andromeda Strain, I was genuinely surprised at how prescient I found the film when watching this gorgeous 4K release from Arrow. It’s a very dark and clinical science fiction story, with a strong emphasis on “science”, but much of its message and imagery hit very differently today than they probably would have at the tail end of the 2010’s. The ghost town full of dead bodies is striking, mixing in almost post Night of the Living Dead elements of horror, while there’s an underlying sense of paranoia wrapping around the central narrative as the government attempts to control media messaging and prevent the public from finding out what’s happened. But central to the Andromeda Strain is the story of its four superhero scientists and their daunting task.
Feeling like some kind of Science Avengers, none of these main characters are real heroes and portrayed very much as normal humans facing an abnormal challenge, constantly bickering and letting their ego’s get in the way. All of this leads to a strangely compelling film for something that’s mostly of scientists looking at screens. As our team begins to start coming to conclusions through their investigation, discovering more about what the satellite may have brought back, the tension increases, particularly as the situation outside the facility worsens and they remain unaware thanks to an unexpected communications breakdown. It’s a very slow build and while not strictly a horror film, there is an air of impending doom hanging over the whole film and a tone that occasionally skirts close to cosmic horror thanks to the inexplicable nature of the threat, as well as the paranoia surrounding the nature of those infected.
Production design is excellent, very much that highly clean pre Alien 70s style sci-fi, and the Wildfire facility is a remarkably visualised compound, underpinned in the audio department by an almost industrial score from composer Gil Melle, as well as some fantastic filmmaking. We get picture-in-picture shots at regular intervals, almost like comic book panels (Ang Lee must have been taking notes for Hulk) as well as more split diopter shots than you can shake a camera lens at. It’s the kind of attention to detail for genre filmmaking that director Robert Wise brought from his work in classics like The Day The Earth Stood Still and The Haunting, and would take forward to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a film that this feels like it could be a spiritual companion to. One sequence that’s unfortunately not aged so well shows animals being exposed to the virus and dying. Thankfully the animals (apparently) weren’t actually killed, but the sequence could be distressing nonetheless.
Unfortunately, as with that first Star Trek movie, the Andromeda Strain perhaps doesn’t stand up entirely pace wise to modern audiences with some incredibly slow sequences as well as a sudden and seemingly unnecessarily action packed finale. Narratively, however, it’s well worth a watch and genuinely chilling at times; its final denouement of “What do we do if this happens again?” is shockingly prescient in the post COVID world and a question that I’m not sure we yet have an answer for…
Bonus Features
- 4K restoration from the original camera negative by Arrow Films
- 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
- Original lossless mono audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio commentary by critic Bryan Reesman
- A New Strain of Science Fiction, an appreciation by critic Kim Newman
- The Andromeda Strain: Making the Film, an archive featurette from 2001 directed by Laurent Bouzereau and featuring interviews with director Robert Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding
- A Portrait of Michael Crichton, an archival featurette from 2001 directed by Laurent Bouzereau and featuring an interview with author Michael Crichton
- Cinescript Gallery, highlights from the annotated and illustrated shooting script by Nelson Gidding
- Theatrical trailer, TV spots and radio spots
- Image gallery
- Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing by Peter Tonguette and select archive material
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Corey Brickley
This new 4K transfer of The Andromeda Strain looks absolutely superb with some great contrast and detail in the video, really helping that top notch cinematography pop. As with pretty much all of these Arrow 4K releases, the bonus features are reused from the old Blu Ray version and you’re also getting a lot of archival material here. It’s a good selection and provides some interesting insight into the film, but it’s perhaps not Arrow’s greatest selection of features.