With Contagion opening this weekend, Reel Talk’s been doing a lot of thinking about the end of humanity. Hollywood loves nothing more than threatening our species’ existence on screen, but more often than not it’s just an excuse to roll out the latest CGI, wreak havoc on some major international landmarks and then have a buff-as-balls movie star come in and save the day.

What makes that formula so effective is that the threat to humanity is completely interchangeable. Whether it’s zombies or aliens or a willful misrepresentation of the Mayan calendar, the same formula works. Establish the threat, unleash mayhem and then let the hero save the dog, get the girl and prevent the human race’s imminent extinction. As long as it looks good it’s usually a licence for studios to print money.

But while there’s nothing wrong with that familiar formula, the most memorable end-of-days films tend to switch it up a little and focus on the personal toll that six billion people dying would have. The best recent example is probably Children of Men, which established how dire humanity’s future was without ever really taking the camera’s focus off of Clive Owen. He became the conduit through which the audience understood how horrible it was to continue living as human civilization crumbled. The bastards even kill Michael Caine. Who would want to live in a world like that?

And now, there’s every reason to believe that Contagion could enter the pantheon of great end-of-humanity films. Put a camera in Steven Soderbergh’s hands and you’re basically guaranteed something glorious. He’s one of the modern masters, and with him directing, a story about an airborne virus that causes a global epidemic has the potential to be not only scary, but also heartbreaking. The trailer focuses mostly on Gwyneth Paltrow’s agonizing death (which is brilliant marketing) before offering brief glimpses of civilization’s collapse. Matt Damon’s there, so are Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet, but there’s no suggestion there’ll be any Bourne-esque heroics. Instead, there’ll just be a slow and studied document of the end of the world as we know it. It should be one hell of a start to Oscar-bait season.

This weekend also brings us Warrior, not to be confused with last year’s unforgettable Geoffrey Rush and Kate Bosworth ninja movie The Warrior’s Way. No, this one’s not about ninjas hiding out in the Wild West, it’s about a couple of meathead brothers who want to be ultimate fighting champions so they fight in a tournament and confront their family’s dark past. It’s kind of like The Fighter except not good. Also, instead of just punching they’re allowed to wrestle too. Which also makes it kind of like a shitty version of The Wrestler.

I’m not sure who exactly is going to see this movie. Do ultimate fighting fans really want to go see a movie that’s as focused on a family’s reconciliation after decades of parental neglect as it is on face-kicks? Do fans of emotionally manipulative family dramas really want to go see a movie about testosterone junkies beating the hell out of each other? Fortunately for the film, the history of mixed martial arts films hasn’t delivered many classics (although David Mamet’s Red Belt was superb), so Warrior could very well go down as one of the best of its weird, mostly stupid subgenre. Unfortunately, that really, really doesn’t count for much.

I watched the trailer for Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star once, and it made me sad. Back in my pre-pubescent years, Adam Sandler was a god. Today, he’s an executive producing the most idiotic-looking movie of the year. Comedians generally lose their edge as they get older — I’m looking at you Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin — but Sandler’s fall from grace is unprecedented. The guy was riding high after Punch-Drunk Love, but since then he’s been on a historic run of bad movies. He’s made his money, but it’s just too bad he didn’t do more with his talent.

The only positive about this movie existing is that the combination of Bucky Larson and the equally terrible-looking Jack & Jill may be enough to permanently turn public opinion against Sandler. Maybe, just maybe, that’ll convince him to abandon his late-career pandering to Middle America and start actually challenging himself again.