Michael Crichton’s breakthrough novel The Andromeda Strain launched his prolific career as a speculative fiction author. This Robert Wise-helmed adaptation meticulously follows the book’s hyper-tense story about a crack team of specialized scientists combating a deadly virus from outer space. They are forced to construct and descend through a state-of-the-art decontamination lab housed deep underground (designed by FX whiz Douglas Trumbull). And at each new level, the stakes grow higher. Are they on the verge of a great extraterrestrial discovery or the deadliest threat in human history? This paranoid thriller is not for the hypochondriac, and comes with a warning: Unpleasant things happen to lab animals.
“A splendid entertainment that will get you worried about whether they’ll be able to contain that strange blob of alien green crystal. But if you find yourself experiencing Andromeda on only the story level, pull back for a moment and watch those people and those machines.” – Roger Ebert
Howard S. Berger discusses The Andromeda Strain on the New Beverly blog.
