Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion'

Bat populations, as you may have read, are mysteriously declining. Frogs have all but vanished; songbirds ditto.

The reasons are no doubt varied, complex and particular, but a common factor links these and numerous other looming extinctions: The beast called homo sapiens, and his relentless destruction of every natural habitat but (as he thinks) his own.

That the last laugh may be on man has begun to dawn on some of us. The highly artificial environments we've built around ourselves have deluded us into imagining that we're exempt from the fate we inflict on other species.

Not so, alas. We are nature's own, and nature possesses formidable powers to remind us of the fact.

That brings me back to bats. Nipa is a virus carried by fruit bats that live in South Asia. Bats don't fall ill of it, but their saliva and urine infects pigs, which we consume. That gives it to us— and, in humans, it is 50 to 75% fatal.

A dozen small outbreaks of the disease have been recorded, all confined so far to rural areas in Asia. But what if it really got loose and went worldwide, the way Bubonic Plague did in the 14th Century or cholera did in the 19th Century?

R.I.P., Chicago

That's the premise of Contagion, the medical disaster flick that has rocketed to the top of the film charts even though it never rises above the level of a souped-up fable for the Age of Terror.

Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow), a flirtatious young businesswoman, picks up the bug in a Hong Kong restaurant, gets ill on the way home, thinks not too much of it, goes into a sudden spasm, and drops dead. Goodbye Chicago.

The virus (it's called MEV-1in the film, and, though based on Nipa, is supposedly a mystery disease) spreads with horrific speed while heroic clinicians at the Centers for Disease Control try desperately to decode it and find an antidote.

Like bureaucrats everywhere, their first impulse is to control all information and activity. This is an instinctive bureaucratic reflex, but the decoding is actually done by a free-lancer (Elliott Gould, in his customary oy-vey manner), and cracks in the façade appear when the CDC chief (Lawrence Fishburne) warns his daughter to get out of town. What doesn't move is a single facial muscle, as if each member of the team had been assigned a fixed expression to go with his or her particular function.

Last actor standing

This space alien effect is heightened by the protective suits worn in the Level-4 lab environment, while so many civilians are shown wearing surgical masks that you wonder if you haven't wandered into a zombie film. The sole exception is Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet), a staff member sent into the field whose untimely death leaves the film not only without a hero but, more important, an actor.

Oh, there's Jude Law, a creep out to make a bundle on a phony remedy. As the villain, his one facial expression is nasty. But one is all he's required (or permitted) to produce.

As with other disaster films, Contagion is crowded with A- and B-list stars who've done good work elsewhere and show up here for a quick buck. We don't go to see them act, but, more or less, to watch them preen. Marlon Brando earned a living this way in his (many) declining years.

But there's not even any fun in that. Aside from Paltrow, who acts as if she's turned up for a publicity shoot, every character seems afflicted with the same motor paralysis.

When so many give so little, the director receives prime credit. Steven Soderbergh has done some good work himself (Sex, Lies and Videotape, etc.). But here he seems intent on making an anti-film. The lack of any dramatic subplots of interest exacerbates the problem.

Dustin Hoffman to the rescue

The last medical disaster film of note, Outbreak in 1995, makes for an interesting contrast. In this film, a particularly virulent strain of the Ebola virus gets loose from a government lab and sickens a California town, which is slated for silent destruction lest the feds' secret get out. It's over the top (though not to say all that far-fetched when you think of some real-life Cold War shenanigans with superbugs), but there's a plot line about the good-guy scientist (Dustin Hoffman) getting it back on with his ex-wife (Rene Russo) while saving the day, and everybody has just the right kind of fun.

In Outbreak the evil isn't the virus but the sinister characters who want to weaponize it. Hoffman is the little guy rooting out the scandal as he did in All the President's Men; and Outbreak, though 20 years on from Nixon, still has a post-Watergate feel. Government is the real disease, and the lone hero is the antidote.

Dead monkeys

Contagion inhabits a different, post-9/11 world. "Nature" (read: terror) is the enemy here, bureaucracy is the hero, and the government alone can keep you safe.

True, the film presents grim scenes of breakdown and panic, and the "president" (referred to but never shown) is described as being safe in a secure undisclosed location. The government freezes up, relief supplies run out, and civilization collapses under the pressure of dread.

But the Centers for Disease Control soldiers on, uses up some monkeys and finds a vaccine—it's not clear exactly how or when, but it's the teamwork that counts. The world is saved, for the time being. But viral cells (and terrorist ones) continue to breed and mutate, and you never know what's preparing to strike next.

Bush's solution

Back during World War II, private citizens bought war bonds and cultivated Victory Gardens. When the War on Terror began, President Bush advised us to go shopping.

That isn't to say we weren't called upon to make sacrifices. We've made a bonfire of our liberties on the altar of national security, which is a much bigger concession than rubber rationing.

The real message of Contagion is that, whether it's a pathogen or a jihadist, the world is out to get you, and government is your final salvation. Not politicians, of course, or fat-cat civil servants living large on your tax dollars, but dedicated scientists and sober-looking military types who'll keep this country safe no matter what. Just trust them, dammit, and stop squawking about free speech and the right to travel!

Doesn't that make you feel better?