Pharma at the movies: The Sequel
We’ve put together the second list in our trilogy to highlight the use of drugs, pharmaceuticals or viruses in six major movies
Spoiler Alert! We are including entire film synopses in this list.
Exam
The film is set in present-time United Kingdom in an alternative reality.
After a viral pandemic a large part of the population is dependant on a ‘miracle’ drug.
Eight candidates enter a room for an employment assessment exam. The Invigilator, from a company named DATAPREV, explains that the exam is 80 minutes and consists of only one question, but there are three rules: they must not talk to the Invigilator or the armed guard at the door, spoil their paper, or leave the room. If they do, they will be disqualified.
It is revealed DATAPREV is responsible for the drug to counter the pandemic.
Three candidates are disqualified for spoiling their papers. One candidate says he needs his medication implying he has the virus, the others do not believe him, but eventually he goes into convulsions.
Another character is disqualified asking for help whilst a character known as Blonde retrieves the medication for the candidate with the disease.
Two more candidates are disqualified and one is shot dead. Blonde and one last candidate are still in the running when the time runs out. The other candidate reveals himself to be the CEO of DATAPREV and creator of the drug which cannot only cure the virus but can also heal any wound.
The bullet that hit the dead candidate contained this cure, and he awakens, healed at the end of the film.
The Amazing Spiderman
Peter Parker has been brought up by his aunt and uncle. He finds his father’s old scientific papers and learns he worked with fellow scientist Dr. Curt Connors at Oscorp.
Sneaking into Oscorp, Peter enters a lab where a "biocable" is under development from genetically modified spiders, one of which bites him. On the subway ride home, he discovers that he has developed spider-like abilities, such as sharp senses, reflexes, speed and webs.
After studying his father's papers, Peter visits the one-armed Connors, reveals who he is and gives Connors his father's "decay rate algorithm", the missing piece in Connors' experiments on regenerating limbs.
Later Peter lets a thief escape who then kills his uncle. Afterward, Peter uses his new abilities to become ‘spider-man’ and hunt criminals matching the killer's description.
After successful animal testing of a lizard-based serum, that includes the decay rate algorithm, Connor’s boss at Oscorp demands that Connors begins human trials but Connors refuses and is fired.
Connors tries the serum on himself in a desperate attempt to stop his boss from injecting the serum in innocent people but it makes him pass out. When Conners awakens he finds his missing arm has regenerated but his skin is turning green and scaly. Connors becomes a violent hybrid of lizard and man called Lizard.
Lizard plans to make all humans lizard-like by releasing a chemical cloud of the serum from Oscorp's tower. Spider-Man eventually disperses an antidote cloud instead, restoring Connors and earlier victims to normal.
28 Days Later
Activists break into a medical research laboratory and free a chimpanzee who is infected with a highly contagious rage-inducing virus. The chimpanzee attacks one of them and immediately infects her — leading her to attack and infect everyone else present.
28 days later Jim awakens from a coma. He finds the entire hospital and surrounding city deserted. Jim is attacked by infected people and then rescued by Selena and Mark. The pair take Jim to their hideout and explain that while Jim was in a coma, a virus spread among the populacne, resulting in societal collapse.
Mark is bitten by infected, prompting Selena to kill him; she later explains that the virus overwhelms its victims in 10 to 20 seconds. Jim and Selena hear a radio broadcast which claim a military blockade have the answer to infection.
They make it to the blockade and are taken to a mansion under the command of Major Henry West who reveals that his answer to infection does not include an antidote but entails waiting for the infected to starve to death. They try to leave the mansion and are captured.
Jim escapes and spots a NATO aircraft flying overhead, proving the there is no infection outside of the UK. He rescues Selena and another girl Hannah and they run to a cab where West shoots Jim in the stomach but they escape.
Another 28 days later, Jim is recovering at a remote cottage. A lone Finnish jet flies over the landscape, and the infected are shown dying of starvation.
The 51st State/ Formula 51
Elmo, a pharmacology graduate, works for a drug lord called the Lizard and creates a brand new drug, POS 51. However, Elmo manages to kill most of the Lizard’s gang in an explosion and escapes with the formula for POS 51. The Lizard contacts an assassin and orders a hit on Elmo as revenge, but specifies that the POS 51 formula must be retrieved first.
Elmo goes to England, and arranges a meeting with the head of a British criminal organisation to sell POS 51. The transaction is about to happen when the assassin, sent by the Lizard, kills everyone at the meeting other than Elmo.
Elmo buys over the counter drugs to make POS 51 and is then captured by a skinhead gang who want the drugs. Elmo makes two batches of the drug, red and blue, and manages to escape by tricking the gang into taking the red pill, which is a laxative.
Elmo makes another deal to sell the POS 51 to drug dealer Iki but the deal is interrupted by the police. Elmo avoids the police but has to fight the assassin and ends up striking a deal with her.
Elmo meets up with Iki to try and do the drugs deal again but it is interrupted by the Lizard who shoots Iki and grabs the POS 51. The Lizard celebrates with a drink which turns out to be a liquid explosive but before he blows up Elmo reveals that POS 51 is a placebo drug, POS standing for Power of Suggestion.
Mission Impossible Two
A biochemical expert has been forced to create bioweapon ‘Chimera’ by Biocyte Pharmaceuticals.
A rogue IMF agent, Ambrose, in disguise as Ethan Hunt helps the biochemical expert to escape with Bellerophon – the cure to Chimera. However, Ambrose kills the biochemical expert as soon as he has the cure. The IMF assign the real Ethan Hunt to recover it.
Ethan’s team to recover the Bellerophon includes Ambrose’s ex-girlfriend, Nyah. Ethan meets his team in Sydney, Australia, where Biocyte laboratories are located along with Ambrose's headquarters.
Ambrose meets with Biocyte's CEO and shows him a video of the Chimera virus taken from Biocyte to blackmail him. Ambrose forces the CEO to sell him Chimera in exchange for the Bellerophon.
Ethan’s team learns that Bellerophon can only save a victim of the Chimera virus if used within the first 20-hours of being infected.
Ethan’s team break into Biocyte to destroy Chimera but Ambrose finds out their plan and Ethan is not able to destroy the last sample of the virus.
Ambrose forces Nyah at gunpoint to retrieve the last sample but when she does so, she injects herself with it, and preventing Abrose from getting it. Abrose takes Nyah and leaves Ethan at Biocyte.
Ambrose leaves a dazed Nyah in Sydney intending to trigger a Chimera pandemic in Australia. Ethan’s team locate Nyah and cures her with Bellerophon.
Awakenings
In 1969, Dr. Malcolm Sayer is a physician at a hospital in The Bronx. He works extensively with the catatonic patients who survived the 1917–1928 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica,
After attending a lecture at a conference on the subject of the L-Dopa drug and its success with patients suffering from Parkinson's Disease, Sayer believes the drug may offer a breakthrough for his own group of patients.
A trial run with one patient, Leonard, yields astounding results: Leonard completely "awakens" from his catatonic state. This success inspires Sayer to ask for funding from donors so that all the catatonic patients can receive the L-Dopa medication and experience "awakenings" back to reality.
Leonard has the ability to function as normal for a while, but no matter how much they increase the amount of L-Dopa he starts to deteriorate. Leonard develops tics which grow more and more prominent, he starts to shuffle more as he walks, then he begins to suffer full body spasms and after a while can hardly move at all.
Leonard puts up well with the pain, and asks Sayer to film him, in hopes that he would someday contribute to research that may eventually help others.
Sayer tells a group of grant donors to the hospital that although the "awakening" did not last, another kind — one of learning to appreciate and live life — took place.
This is the second list in our pharma movie trilogy, Click here for Part I and watch out for Part III coming soon to a website near you!