Contagion (US) - Realistic but lacking Punch!!

Contagion (US)
Synopsis:
This movie is about a story of how a virus becomes an outbreak with patient 1: Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) falling sick after arriving home from a business trip in Hong Kong. Her husband, Mitch Emhoff played by Matt Damon takes her to the hospital but she succumb to the illness. Also at the same time, his stepson develop similar symptom and also succumb to the illness. The illness has been verified as a virus after the autopsy and government agency, the CDC (Center of Disease Control) headed by Dr.Ellis Cheever (played by Laurence Fishburne) has been notified to contain the spread of the disease while finding the cause of the epidermic. When more and more people around the world is infected with the virus and died: London, Hong Kong, Japan, US, the CDC needs to rush out with an anti-virus vaccine to cure this new virus while keep people under control.
Review:
I have high anticipation of this movie after knowing the story plot of this movie. Also as this is not consider as a big blockbuster movie, there are only limited releases in selected cinema. Somehow i manage to squeeze my way through and watch it last week. With a big cast of actors and actresses, i was hoping that this will turn out to be a good movie. So, after watching the movie ... i was rather disappointed with the outcome of the movie. Please do not be misunderstood, as it was a good movie but it wasn't a great movie. The story telling is very realistic with minimal color and sound to create such mood. The action taken by the CDC, the containment and the aftermath is also realistically done. So, why this movie isn't a great movie then? To me....it is too monotonous .. there is no up and down, there is no sense of urgency, there is no heart-pounding sequence scene or music even. It was too quiet and i guess many viewer (young audience especially) felt somewhat less satisfying with the outcome of the movie. With such interesting and wide casts, i think director Steven Soderbergh should try to up some tempo every now and then to make it more engaging.

Verdict:

I give it a 3.5 star out of 5. A noteworthy movie but lacking the punch needed to make it a great movie.