‘Contagion’ Opens to Strong Reviews

Contagion, the film partially shot in Western Springs and opening in wide release in theaters today, has garnered positive reviews from the vast majority of critics on review sites RottenTomatoes and Metacritic.

The Steven Soderbergh film is tracking at 80 percent positive reviews on RottenTomatoes (“certified fresh”) and a score of 69 out of 100 on Metacritic (indicating “generally favorable reviews.”)

Keith Phillips of The A.V. Club gave the film a “B,” with particular praise for the work of Matt Damon and Anna Jacoby-Heron, the two stars who .

“The film’s strongest moments belong to Matt Damon,” Phillips writes. “In one memorable scene, a trip to the grocery store provides an accidental tour of an unraveling civilization.”

That grocery store is, of course, the former Tischler’s—and you can . It’s likely that other scenes shot with Damon on Burlington Avenue also depict said unraveling civilization.

Famed Chicago-based reviewer Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four (a thumbs-up), writes that the film “works as drama” and “deserves praise for taking the scientific method seriously when so much hogwash is floated about regarding vaccines.”

Webzine Salon has the movie as their “pick of the week” and a thoroughly positive take, calling it a “chilly, fascinating thriller at odds with itself [but] one whose most interesting qualities may limit its box-office appeal.”

Not all reviews are so positive. For instance, several outlets criticize Jude Law’s portrayal of a villainous huckster blogger as out-of-place and ill-formed.

Ed Gonzalez of Slant, while also praising Damon, writes that the film “merely suggests a ketamine addict's adaptation of a CDC Preparedness 101 manual, depicting catastrophe in dreamy, nuance-free fast-forward with the single-minded purpose of advocating the supremacy of science.”

It appears that one’s appreciation of the movie may be largely based on their own personal opinion of the issues depicted, and whether or not one agrees.

Out of the fictional world, MSNBC has a look at how the movie is playing out over at the very real Center for Disease Control, which is portrayed extensively in the film.