Rating: 
Summary: What a Bummer!
Review: Will anyone please explain to me why Foster meets her space alien - who turns out to be her own dead father - on a tropical beach? What is this supposed to mean? This film offends just about everyone: science fiction buffs, scientists, atheists, religionists, those who believe in aliens, those who don't, and most of us hoping for alien contact of the Spielberg kind. If you think there's going to be lots of interesting special effects, fast forward the film after the first five minutes to the last ten minutes. This should save you hours of boredom. Also, is this what Carl Sagan wrote? Shame on him if he did! Zemeckis's own Forrest Gump could write a better story! I have a feeling the book ought to be different, but after this movie I'm not interested enough to bother finding out....
Rating: 
Summary: Giving Atheists and Believers common Ground
Review: I saw this movie when it was released in 1997. I was impressed by many aspects of it. I liked how instead of telling us or showing us everything that was happening all the time, we got to see it on CNN's breaking news. I thought that was a pretty cool way of displaying the movie. Plus they tied it in with current events of that time. Remember the clip of the bodies being taken out of that San Diego home when members of the Heavens Gate killed themselves? They stuck that in. I still remember that too.
Second of all, I thought it was great that it tackled the subject of faith....NOT RELIGION. Remember, in the movie, religion dies (when the machine blows up) but, faith and science survive.Ok, I dont think I want to give away anymore of the movie. I swear this is one of the last movies that actually made me think other than Minority Report. I love movies and I hate when people criticize them. I think we watch too many of them as a society and then begin to not appreciate them. Remember, they are for our entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: Was this a movie or did they try to promote CNN?
Review: When you want to create a world for a big budget science fiction movie, it has to litterally be it';s own world with little or no connection with the everyday world. Showing CNN news casters in this movie from start to finish was clearly a case of over-kill and took away from what the film was supposed to be, had George Lucas or Steven Spielberg made this movie, it would have been a lot more then what was delivered here, which was not much.
Carl Sagan's best known films and statements on Mankind's place in the universe was much better explored with the PBS series, COSMOS.
Rating:
Summary: Superb adaptation of a wonderful book.
Review: This movie has it all. I read the book first, and usually that means I won't like the movie. Of course this was a total surprise. Sagan's work transferred very well onscreen, with only a few minor differences. Foster is always excellent to watch, and what a great chemistry she shares with Matthew McConaughey! If you haven't seen Contact or read the book, please try it out. You'll go for a heckuva ride from one side of the Universe to the other, and discover that the human heart holds the greatest journey all the while :)
Rating:
Summary: A Summer Movie that Actually Makes You Think!!
Review: For those who actually like to be ENGAGED when we watch movies, summertime is usually the nadir of the year. Lavish special effects complemented by treacly dialogue make me usually stay home when the latest "blockbuster" is released. However, in the summer of 1997, this baby came along and was a breath of fresh air. Actually having a movie get people to think about the meaning of life and their own existence is a fairly daunting task for a movie, but this one succeeds smashingly. Having used it in my classes, I can attest that these questions can cut across ages and get down to the heart of us all. It was also nice that this movie was fairly successful, making close to 100 million. Like the best movies, repeated viewings just strengthen the message within.
Rating: 
Summary: A science fiction "Field of Dreams".
Review: If you saw FIELD OF DREAMS, well, this is the sci-fi version of it, with a woman building a spaceship instead of a man building a baseball diamond. Like so many movies in all genres in recent years, it is overblown and pretentious, actually fantasy with the trappings of science fiction. It is technically excellent, of course. Movies with multi-million dollar budgets generally are. If you are looking for a movie that is really Serious with a capital S, don't miss this one. It is serious, all right, but it is not much fun.
Rating:
Summary: A RELIGIOUS PIECE OF PREACHY PHYSCO-BABBLE!
Review: How dare anyone even utter the word 'Science Fiction', This is NOT science fiction. This is an advert for GOD! 'Aliens' is science fiction, '2001: A Space Odessey' is science fiction, this is certainly NOT NOT NOT Science Fiction!!! I happen to LOVE Jodie Foster, she is a skilled actress as proven by films like 'The Accused' or 'Slience of the Lambs' films which she has both won acadamy awards for; Howver i am pressed to ask the question, Why on earth could such an intelligent woman participate in what is one of the most appauling pieces of transparent religious nonsense? It makes me angry to think that in the first half hour a girl is told that her father died because God 'Willed It' Well what kind of a God or Person is prepared to tell a nine year old child that God wanted her parents to die! If you are religious by all means watch it, it will teach you a lesson, as at one point a reliogous figure KILLS hundreds of people! show it to your kids too, it will show them how dangerous religion is! Why oh why as a Science fiction and Jodie Foster Fan i am asking couldnt they have ended the film with a scientific explanation like of the one in the book 'Choccy' written by John Wyndam, instead of some brainwashing piece of sentimental rubbish?
Rating:
Summary: Wishful thinking mixed with reality.
Review: Carl Sagan was a genius on this book. His truly visionary ideas mixed with the reality of politics and social fads(how people would reject the project at one moment and love it the next) was truly stunning. His idealism about us being silly to think of ourselves as the only living beings in the universe is visionary and seemingly accurate. The excitement of evolving sciences and the wonder this book fills you with are all well worth the time to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: In Contact, Dr Sagan is writing about a possible scenario in the event of mankind receiving signals from another civilization. The main plot with its subplots and very interesting characters is great. There are some subtle and clever analogies here too. I have read this book several times before the movie came out. I loved it from the first chapter and then it just got better and better. Also, reading it several years after the movie came out I feel that I understand more of this book for each time I read it. It's just excellent, this is how scifi should be written!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies ever...
Review: This movie is tremendous, visually, aesthetically, conceptually. It blends the whole spirituality/science thing with amazing dexterity. Both fields seek meaning in this life and both ultimately end in a mystery. So too this movie. Jodie Foster is brilliant as a scientist who longs for meaning even in the midst of her scientific endeavors. This movie is big all the way around. Rather than highbrow entertainment we are drawn to the characters and really feel the character Jodie Foster portrays. My only criticism is the pseudo-religious character played by Matthew McConaughey which is a more sterilized version of presenting the religious element. But the religious element is necessary to make the whole thing work or it becomes just another sci-fi flick. Perhaps in places the movie is a bit over the top but in the end it works. Visually the film is remarkable. It is not overladen with special effect but the special effects that are present are dynamite. The best thing about the movie is that the observer is not a bystander but is required to engage the film and enter in. This isn't mystical hocus pocus but the signs of a really good movie. Well worth watching. Even more than once.
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