The Andromeda Strain 4K UHD

This review is for the Blu-Ray edition of 'The Andromeda Strain' released by Universal Home Entertainment in 2015.I'm going to keep this review to a minimum (for me) because this movie is very well known, much talked about over the years and very well reviewed. I don't have a lot to add to what has already been said on this one.If you have never seen this film and you are among the younger crowd, it is still worth watching. The production values were excellent for the day and it mostly stands up today.BLU-RAY: This film is shown in widescreen format with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. I thought the picture looked excellent. I'm sure experts in photography could give you more details but to these 50+ year old eyes the picture looked almost like new.EXTRA'S: You get some good extra's. There is a 'Making of' documentary called 'The Andromeda Strain: Making The Film'. There is also a 'Portrait of Michael Crichton'. You also get the theatrical trailer.PLOT/SUMMARY: The movie opens with a government recovery team investigating a crashed satellite in New Mexico. Almost everyone has died. The only survivors are a baby and an older alcoholic man.The survivors are brought to a secret underground facility to be studied. There are four scientists and they undergo extraordinary decontamination procedures before they are brought into the laboratory. The remainder of the movie focuses on their attempt to solve what was brought back by the satellite and what is causing it to kill almost everyone it comes into contact with.PRODUCTION/COMMENTS: This movie was released by Universal in 1971.-This movie had a large budget for the time period. It was made for $6.5 million. Ultimately it was a financial success.-The movie was directed by Robert Wise. He is the director of some excellent Sci-Fi and horror films such as 'The Body Snatcher', 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' and 'The Haunting' among many others.-The movie was based on the book of the same name by Michael Crichton, who would go on to much fame for the many movies based on his books.-The female character of Ruth Leavitt was a male character in the book.-This movie is notable for using many accurate scientific procedures.-The fictional town in the movie was located and filmed in Texas.-Micheal Crichton makes a cameo appearance in this film. He is in the background as a doctor. He was put in the background because of his height.RECOMMENDATIONS: I'm giving this release 4 1/2 stars which I'm bumping up to 5. The only thing that it is lacking as far as I'm concerned is an audio commentary. The picture is excellent and you get some pretty good extra's.Recommended for all fans of science fiction films.

This is a very realistic movie about the processes and protocols followed to contain an unknown disease. It is not meant to be action driven. It is one of the first movies in the genre of "biological terror/disaster". After this one, there are quite a few movies made following the same type of plot (Contagion 2011, Outbreak 1995, Quarantine 2008, and many other virus outbreak movies). It is shot in 1971 so the special effects are old school. I personally like old school special effects and movies that are realistic. I think the set design is excellent. There are a few scenes where they show the virus under microscope so they used a special effect to make it HD and those effects look pretty good. There is no music except in few scenes; music is used very minimally. This was a blind purchase for me as I had not seen the movie before. HD quality picture and audio are very good. Overall, acting is very good, despite the fact that there are no major stars in the movie.Overall, I think it is a great movie. There is a continuous suspense but it is the last 15-20 minutes where things get really suspenseful. Act 1 is discovering the dead people in a town and implementing quarantine procedures, act 2 is figuring out the virus, and act 3 - Conclusion. There are quite a few extras on the disc. I just watched the feature commentary by Bryan Reesman and I loved his commentary. Some commentaries are boring and uninteresting but not this one. Bryan Reesman was the perfect choice to provide commentary on this movie. His commentary is well-paced and interesting, perfectly aligned with what's happening in the movie, and full of insightful information.The author Michael Crichton makes a rare cameo appearance in one of the scenes. Michael Crichton is the author of many science fiction novels that were made into movies (most notably the Jurassic Park).