Chris Pine's Three-Year-Old Influenza Zombie Movie Unearthed

It's not too difficult to figure out the reasoning behind Paramount's decision to finally release Carriers, a pandemic thriller with Chris Pine shot way back in 2006. For starters, Pine is now a huge star, launched into the stratosphere by J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. Furthermore, the entire planet was just going pigshit a few weeks ago over something called swine flu. So it seems a no-brainer, right, to blow the dust off Pastor brothers Àlex and David's 28 Days Later-ish movie about an avian flu outbreak, toss it into theaters, and see if it floats. (It opens early September.)

The set-up imagery should seem familiar enough to you: statistics about the 1918 Influenza pandemic, magnified viruses, scared people wearing masks, maps with red hotspot splotches spreading at alarming rates -- throw in Anderson Cooper and a couple teabagging jokes, you got yourself any number of month-old 360° broadcasts. Pine doesn't seem to have too much to be ashamed of here, nor does Lou Taylor Pucci. And while they manage to squeeze as much suspense as they can out of the concept of a 6-year-old girl sneezing in your mouth, I'm not sure this is the kind of entertainment the world really needs or wants right now. When it comes to horror, I'll take vomiting Gypsies over sub-microscopic infectious agents any day.

Verdict: Gesundheit.