Carriers

Released: 2009
MPAA rating: PG-13
Run time: 1:24

Here we have a fairly promising premise:  The world has been decimated by some sort of highly contagious virus and we follow four young survivors as they travel to someplace where they can get away from it all.   Along the way, they will meet up with other survivors and we get to see some of the darker side of the survival instinct.  Sounds like good stuff, but somehow it all ends up being just silly.  Chris Pine and Piper Perabo lead the cast as two of the traveling survivors and Christopher Meloni gives a strong performance as a dad just trying to find some way to help his infected daughter.  The performances are not the problem here as they are all very good.  The problem is the movie starts fairly strong with a road-side showdown with the aforementioned dad and the four survivors and then just ends up going nowhere.  We never really get a sense of what this virus does to you other than seeing a couple of rashes on people that are infected.  Obviously, it kills, but the horror of it is lost by the failure to see anyone actually dying from being infected.   Although I agree this is a major nitpick, even the title is mis-stated.  None of the main characters are "carriers", they just haven't been infected yet.  The one major plot hole that drove me crazy is that every time the group ran into an infected person, they douse the interior of their car with gallons and gallons of bleach.  While this may be some sort of disinfectant, it would also render the car completely unusable.  Can you imagine the stench of seats soaked in bleach in a closed vehicle?? The movie does have a couple of decent scenes, but overall, it just completely disappoints. If you want to see this kind of story done right, read or watch Stephen King's "The Stand".

Grade:  D

Trailer: