The Andromeda Strain

Wednesday  27 March at 7.30pm

Robert Wise | USA | 1971 | 131 mins | PG violence

This clear-eyed adaptation of Michael Crichton’s bestseller puts the science into science-fiction as a group of experts contends with the outbreak of a deadly microscopic organism from space.

“They call it science fiction, but only too rarely does the cinematic genre tackle a subject which focuses primarily on the science. This screen adaptation of Michael Crichton’s first bestseller tackles the crisis that unfolds when a space probe falls to Earth carrying an extra-terrestrial virus that instantly turns human blood to powder. Thankfully, the US authorities have just built a secret subterranean research facility for exactly such eventualities. But it’s by no means a given that the boffins will be able to isolate and neutralise the threat – and there’s a nuclear self-destruct option to prevent wider contamination. Veteran director Robert Wise, still riding on the box-office bonanza of The Sound of Music, approaches it all with an austere documentary rigour that at first seems to underplay the drama, but builds an almost unbearable degree of claustrophobic anxiety.”—Trevor Johnston, Time Out