Rating: 
Summary: Modern Day 2001
Review: This is a really fantastic movie that blows away most "first contact" type stories. It is done in such a way that the viewer actually believes that it really could happen this way. I agree with most reviewers that there is a slight cheese factor involved, but hey, that's Hollywood!I love the entire journey that is undertaken here: a journey of mankind on so many different levels. This film is very deep and entertaining at the same time. It is almost a "2001" aimed at the mass audience and made more practical (don't get upset, I LOVED 2001, too). I agree that this movie is not about religion vs. science. Rather, it is about how the two are connected and how there is no "right" or "wrong" side of the fence to be on. I think it is a bold and enlightening statement. Also, this is only a background theme to the bigger tale of man's journey into the next era. Stunning and engrossing. You should enjoy it if you view it with an open mind...
Rating: 
Summary: I think some people are missing the point . . .
Review: Contact is a film about the battle to get to space, and what we might find there. It's not attempting to prove or disprove God, or the value of science. It's not trying to tell us that all politicians or priests are bad. And it's not trying to be "Lost in Space". What "Contact" is: a moderately thoughtful and carefully constructed essay on possible first contact and problems therein. It's got some cheesy mechanics in it (love-story, arbitrary ending), but, frankly, you expect that. It does provide beautiful and, more importantly, integral special effects, and some nice acting from a few cast members. Not all, mind you. I find it difficult to believe that anyone who watches this film with tolerance and an open mind could object to it. Obsessive Christians' only complaint might be that there are atheists in the movie. Grow up - there are atheists in real life. Obsessive scientists might have trouble with depictions of science as faith. Get real - the issue isn't science, but personal belief. If you can shed a few preconceptions, and are willing to watch something a little deeper than "Batman and Robin", then you should enjoy "Contact". If not, then just don't watch it. But you'll be missing out on an important debate.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting novel
Review: Carl Sagan does a good job bringing up and discussing the thin line between science and religion. It definetly leaves you thinking... I did the mistake of seeing the movie first. Not that I disliked the movie, I actually thought it was good. The book doesn't give you that much move then the move though. I guess it goes a little deaper, but once you've seen it, reading the book is a waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic!
Review: Contact is not like those other Sci-Fi movies. It's mostly psychologic, about people and their lives, their struggles, their goals. It is a masterpiece! A great cast, very-well directed! The special effects are good. This movie is for those who loves Sci-Fi movies with a story! And since most of those movies don't have any story or logic behing their big amazing special effects, that's what makes CONTACT a classic, best real/intelligent Sci-Fi movie that has been made so far. And then again, Jodie Foster totally delivers!
Rating:
Summary: Buy it, then play it as Big and Loudly as possible.
Review: When I first saw this movie in the theater I was blown away and went home in a daze. With some time to reflect, it was more about Jodie Foster's performance and the film's big Hollywood style, than true movie substance. Emotionally one of my favorites, I've watched it many times and still get a little choked up, esp. when she gets ready for launching in the Machine. The love story, however, is flat, and thus I feel it can't have 5 stars. I had to read the book, and of course it was better. More political, (although dated) it makes up for the lack of deep substance in the movie. No love story here (although some interest in a character not even in the movie). Read it soon, but after you see the movie. Carl Sagan, thank you for making a brilliant, original pop fiction novel before you left us. As for the DVD, plenty has been said here already, and all of it is true. This is one of the ultimate DVD versions of a movie and relatively inexpensive too! (only Brazil - Criterion is better, but 3 times the price!) Movie: 4 stars DVD, although : 5+ stars
Rating:
Summary: Ideas before special effects!
Review: When I first saw "Contact" in the theater, a few audience members walked out on it. So buyer (or renter) beware: This is not a science fiction movie for everyone. If, however, you are interested in a sci-fi movie that puts ideas before special effects...look no further. There are no ray guns in "Contact." There are no bug-eyed aliens. No explosions. (Actually, strike that. There is one explosion. Perhaps the most spectacular explosion I've ever seen in a movie.) What "Contact" has instead is ideas. What will mankind's first contact with an alien species really be like? It won't be pointy-eared Vulcans landing in their spaceships. It won't be nasty, slimy aliens blowing up the White House. It will, more than likely, go something like this: A young, driven radio astronomer (Jodie Foster in a role which surely should have gotten her another Oscar nomination) hears a radio signal from somewhere out there... Incidently, how many of you know that Carl Sagan started working on the screenplay to "Contact" before he started writing the novel? Sometimes the wheels of Hollywood turn very slowly.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: I read this book shortly after I saw the movie, just after completing my sophomore year in high school. The book went much more in depth than the movie; something that usually makes books better than the movies that are based on them; which is true in this case. If you can understand the complex math and science that is interwoven into the chapters (I didn't, but I read it anyway :) you'll probably enjoy it that much more. Otherwise I would have rated it five stars. A must for for the obsessive sci-fi reader (such as myself :).
Rating:
Summary: Contact, the World's BEST Movie
Review: "Coctact" is probably the best movie I have ever seen besides Appolo 13! The movies both show things that touch the viewers heart. I hope that you will see "Contact" if you have not already.
Rating:
Summary: Did he find what he was searching for?
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the late Carl Sagan's innermost aspirations lived out in the life of Ellie the radio astronomer. His descriptions of what might happen if a non random signal were received from elsewhere in the galaxy through a radio telescope inferring intelligent life as the source of the signal are creative and fascinating. The flight to a distant paradise-like world to meet god-like beings who are all knowing, all wise and good leads one to hope that such things exist. Carl Sagan's description of the multinational, years long, and no costs barred effort to decode and understand the message that turns out to be a blueprint for a complex machine is in fact occurring today! Truth is stranger than fiction. There is currently a collaborative effort over many years, by universities around the world costing millions of dollars to understand the message encoded within DNA which is the blueprint for the human body. The effort is justified because of the spin off benefits both medical and economic that will result. I sense that Contact reflects a aspiration to find God, to find purpose in life and fellowship in the universe. Just as the skeptics doubt the story the 5 travelers bring back of visiting the center of the galaxy and meeting other beings, so too many today find a purposeful message in the stars above or the cells within too incredible to believe. Just as the "machine" was built to transport people to its designers in space, so too our Designer desires to bring our souls to Himself through our earth bound bodies. "Yet in my flesh I shall see God".
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: A book that every *Woman* should read, because Ellie (the most important character) is a superior scientist to the clumsy and incompetent white males around her. Unfortunately the film version by Jodie Foster is poorly executed, but then she's not the most talented director in the world (although thankfully at least somewhat a feminist...)
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