Contact

Rating:
Summary: NOT A THRILLER, BUT A THINKER
Review: Off the bat, be aware that Contact is not an "alien" movie, but so much more. Within the first minute of this film, you know you are about to watch something completely original. (Just for the beginning this is worth watching, as it deserves the award of best opening sequence ever (with Memento a close second)) It focuses on the struggles that Ellie (Foster) faces as a scientist grappling with losses of those close to her, opposition from her superiors and peers, and her atheistic attitude toward life. The movie ultimately focuses on the concept that, whatever you want to call it, there is "more" out there.

Foster does a great job of acting, and while the movie runs long at 2 1/2 hours, it's an interesting and unique story. More dramatic than action-packed, Contact is touching in its telling and will make you think about the possibilities that lie out there.

Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER GREAT MOVIE MADE BY ROBERT ZEMECKIS.
Review: When you see a film made by Robert Zemeckis, you can be sure that you are going to find three things in such movie:

1).- THE MOVIE HAS OUSTANDING TECHNICAL LEVEL: "Contact" has excellent visual effects, the worm holes seem very realistic, when Jodie Foster travels to another "planet", the scene looks spectacular. The photography in "Contact" is very detailed. The shots that show the outer space and the natural beauties surrounding the research centers are proof of the high technical level of the team behind "Contact". The use of footage of popular characters (like Bill Clinton) look as real or even more real that the scenes in "Forrest Gump" (same technical team behind "Contact", but with more experience and more technology than where they did "Forrest Gump" in 1994). By the way, the music is also perfect for this film, the composer was Alan Silvestri.

2).- THE MOVIE HAS AN INTERESTING CAST: in "Contact", we can find popular actors like Jodie Foster, James Woods, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Rob Lowe and Matthew McConaughey.

3).- THE MOVIE WILL BE INTERESTING, PERHAPS WILL BE FASCINATING: and "Contact" isn't the exception to this rule. The human beings are always interested in the study of other planets and solar systems, and we are always wandering if there is life in other place besides the Earth.

Robert Zemeckis is a director capable of tell a story in his movies, he has a lot of tricks and resources, he is very creative and he is always surrounded by the right people in every movie that he makes. Another interesting movies filmed by Robert Zemeckis are: "Forrest Gump", "Back To The Future", "Cast Away" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?".

Rating:
Summary: Faith and Science Find a Harmonic
Review: Carl Sagan's phenomenal novel "Contact" was served justice. In this dramatic "Sci-Fi" movie, the lead character, Dr. Arroway (Jodi Foster) is presented with the penultimate challenge of pitting scientific logic and the essential human importance of religious faith in a God/higher power to live a life of meaning. I cannot imagine this movie being nearly as significant without the excellent casting of characters. (especially Foster). This is a tough issue to "sell" to the public and a difficult message to convey through the genius of Sagan. However, the job gets done and done well. I reccommend seeing this video 2 or 3 times to really get the full impact of the message, or better, read Sagan's book before or after seeing the video. You will be moved and it will be on your mind for days to follow-------or longer if you are of a religious or philosophical nature. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Rather Good, Especially the First Half
Review: I was in no hurry to see this film and didn't for ages. For one thing the really fun alien movies are those where they are evil and want to eat us. As any real sci-fi fan will tell you, nice, friendly aliens are for sissies. For another it's by Robert Zemeckis whose other films tend not to rock my world. And for another again I thought it would be a bit like "Close Encounters" which I hated. Why did I hate "Encounters"? Well, mainly because I thought it was dumb: it's the key film in the rather troubling mainly American cultural trend of treating the possibility of alien contact as a kind of ersatz religion. And it's a pretty silly ersatz religion. It ended, you remember with a great crowd of people (a crowd clearly intended to included us the audience) gazing upwards in an attitude of dumb, sub-religious awe. And with nothing to merit it except a vision of gleaming metal and astronomical power. Which is one of the stupider reasons around for any kind of awe. For some reason I expected this to be a bit similar but it's really a lot more interesting and, for the most part steers appealingly clear of the dumb sub-religious awe route.

The first - and better - half is a nice attempt to work through imaginatively what would actually happen if the people who sit around listening for alien signals from outer space were really to come across something unambiguously so sourced and seriously interesting. And we can readily enough appreciate how the military establishment might muscle in, how assorted fringe - and perhaps some not so fringe - religious groups would get badly carried away in diverse directions, how the bigshot scientist who had dismissed all such research as nonsense and vetoed the funding is suddenly right on board and claiming half the credit. All this is very nicely, very credibly portrayed, with James Woods as the unappealing National Security man who does the muscling, Tom Skerritt as the previously hostile bigshot who takes more than his share of the credit and the always fine Jodie Foster as the Ellie Arroway, the scientist to whom most of the credit is properly due. I was rather less convinced by Matthew McConaughey as the bigshot religious thinker and spiritual adviser to the President who intermittently romances Arroway. (And by the way, how plausible is it that a bigshot religious thinker would not know what Ockam's Razor is? OK, so I guess Arroway's explanation was really meant for us, the audience. That's fine then, but I was a bit shocked somewhat earlier when we are treated to a similarly gratuitous explanation of what prime numbers are: is the target audience for sci-fi movies really so mathematically illiterate that this was necessary?) A small appearance by John Hurt as a bonkers maverick scientist is also a bit unconvincing but such great fun I forgave it instantly.

The second half worried a lot less about being plausible. The aliens have sent us a blueprint for a ship that takes a passenger instantaneously across vast reaches of space to their home and this is duly built at vast expense and tested at huge risk. A natural thought is that, if the aliens can make these ships, why not just make their own and come calling? Part of the answer presumably is that Spielberg already made that movie. The answer we in fact get at the end is that aliens work in mysterious ways their wonders to perform. Which isn't really very satisfying. But I thought it was an interesting, intelligent piece of film-making that held my interest pretty nicely for all of its 150 minutes.

Rating:
Summary: A truly great movie.
Review: One of my favorite movies. There are so many great scenes. The opening is jaw-dropping beautiful. The scene where Ellie runs to the medicine cabinet is one of the top ten scenes in the history of the medium. Perfect.

Rating:
Summary: "Wanna take a ride?"
Review: In 1985, Pulitzer-prize winning author and astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-1996) wrote a brilliant "what-if" scenario in his novel entitled "Contact". In the novel, Carl Sagan created a scenario in which his protagonist, a radio astronomer named Dr. Eleanor Ann 'Ellie' Arroway, discovers an extraterrestrial radio transmission that is clearly from an intelligent alien source. The discovery causes intense debate between the proponents of science, religion and government that eventually leads to some very compelling questions on the nature of faith itself. In 1997, the novel was transformed into a film of the same name under the direction of the well-known director Robert Zemeckis, who had previously directed "Forrest Gump" (1994, for which Zemeckis won the Oscar for Best Director), "Death Becomes Her" (1992), "Back to the Future" (1985) and "Romancing the Stone" (1984).

Carl Sagan, with assistance from writers Ann Druyan, James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg, slightly modified the original story by giving Dr. Arroway (played by Jodie Foster) a more personal adversary in another astronomer, Dr. David Drumlin (played by Tom Skerritt). At the beginning of the film, a brief exploration of Dr. Arroway's childhood (played by Jena Malone) is provided that helps to establish her purely scientific perception of reality that resulted in part from the passing away of her father, Ted Arroway (David Morse), who had also encouraged her love of science, astronomy and radio communications. As an astronomer, Dr. Arroway dedicated her work to the SETI project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), which Dr. Drumlin considers frivolous and potentially damaging to Dr. Arroway's credibility. With her governmental funding cut, Dr. Arroway eventually gets private funding after she approaches one of the world's richest and most influential men, S. R. Hadden (John Hurt). With funding secured, Dr. Arroway's search continues at the Very Large Array (VLA) near Socorro, New Mexico. With her unorthodox method of personally listening to outer space static, Dr. Arroway suddenly and unexpectedly hears a bizarre set of sounds. She immediately gets her team, which includes Kent Clark (William Fichtner), busy working on analyzing the signal, which likely comes from an extraterrestrial source. Once verified, she announces her discovery to the world via the news media, to the disdain of governmental officials including Dr. Drumlin, National Security Advisor Michael Kitz (James Woods) and then President Bill Clinton (himself via archive footage). It also gains explosive response from very religious individuals who don't necessarily share Dr. Arroway's enthusiasm, except for Father Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), whom Dr. Arroway met in Puerto Rico in a more than casual sense. The content of the message itself raises some very large questions.

What really brought Carl Sagan's vision to life in "Contact" was placing it within a contemporary timeframe. This included the use of many real events, people and places that included CNN, the VLA, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and many cameos from current politicians the television personalities (Jay Leno, Larry King, Geraldine A. Ferraro, Geraldo Rivera to name only a few). Also, Robert Zemeckis placed actors within archival footage in much the same way as he did with the film "Forrest Gump" in 1994. All of this, as well as superb acting from the principal actors (Jodie Foster, Tom Skerrit, Matthew McConaughey, John Hurt, William Fichtner and James Woods), great cinematography, wonderful sets and great special effects make this a brilliant film. Other memorable characters include Rachel Constantine (Angela Bassett), Richard Rank (Rob Lowe), the NASA Mission Director (Tucker Smallwood) and Joseph (Jake Busey). Some of the most memorable scenes in the film include Dr. Arroway hearing the message at the VLA, the public response, the political discussions, Dr. Arroway meeting S.R. Hadden, the machine, Dr. Arroway's relationship with Palmer, the pinnacle event and its aftermath.

Overall, I rate "Contact" with a resounding 5 out of 5 stars. In my opinion, it portrays many very probable debates and reactions if astronomers ever actually do discover intelligent extraterrestrial communication signals. I applaud Carl Sagan for his vision, as well as Robert Zemeckis and the many actors and other people involved with the making of this very engaging and compelling film.

Rating:
Summary: Bad script and terrible DVD.
Review: Having read the book of the same name, I can tell you that the book Contact and the movie, Contact are two very different stories. The book was a complex yet meaningful search by a young woman who tries to answer her father's quest for intelligent life in the universe, but where the book was more spritual, the movie completely abandons it for more in your face self-promotion of Warners for CNN, a love story that is cliched from start to finish, an all too preachy message for world peace that ends up falling apart in a poor written script, and a lot of fake looking CGI effects that are all too computer generated.
I'm also sorry to say that Jodie Foster's performance is just not that impressive. It appears mostly wooden and forced in many places. Warner Brothers's record of faulty DVD production also does not help with both bad director's commentery and a theater trailer that looks like it was a rip off of Star Wars. Carl Sagan's thoughts on the universe were so much more expressed in his COSMOS series, and by his friend Arthur C. Clarke in the movies, 2001 and 2010.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing!!
Review: Robert Zemekis' Sci-Fi flick is filled with potential. Great use of President Clinton images. Realistic usage of CNN anchors and reporters. It's special effects are visually stunning. The problem is the script. The storyline lags behind the technical portion of the film and in the end, it left me with a bad taste and plenty of open holes that are just not believable. It tries to be like "Close Encounters..." and ended up like bad religious version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" without the nukes! I was just not impressed with this effort!! Sorry!!

Rating:
Summary: Science Fiction at its best.
Review: 'Contact' is science fiction at its best. Go Jodie Foster and kudos to the filmmakers for making a strong female character who is a real leader.

Rating:
Summary: Whoever thought a close encounter could be so boring?
Review: I like Jodie Foster. She's a terrific actress if given the right script (Silence of the Lambs springs to mind). But, like any other human being, she isn't perfect. Contact, apparently her creative child, ought to pop whatever "genius balloon" the folks in Hollywood have tried to pin on her sleeve. This movie is slow, overbearing, and not very interesting--quite an accomplishment for a movie involving inter-stellar travel and first contact with intelligent life outside of Earth. All in all, Foster holds her own compared to the insufferable performance from Matthew McConaughey. Simply put, he is awful, attempting to portray an intelligent representative of the religious point of view. He simply isn't up to that task, and comes across as more of a dumb hick way out of his element. (Has he ever been good in anything? Not that I've seen.)

So Contact just drags on and on, preaching this, prattling on about that, spoon-feeding us the life story of this preeminent scientist (Foster), showing us stereotypical intrigue between those who want scientific progress and those who do not. Added for good measure are some sophmoric attempts to engage in philosophizing about "big" issues (which end up being just plain dumb) and an ending that simply isn't worth the wait. The long, long wait as Contact crawls to its anti-climactic conclusion.