Rent Contact (1997)

'2001: A Space Odyssey' updated to the 1990s. Recommended. - Contact review by RP

I seem to have watched rather a lot of sci-fi films recently - and here's yet another...

'Contact' covers a lot of ground: first contact with an alien civilisation, conflict - or at least tension - between science and religion, the role of women in science, personal loss and family, political / military machinations, and the power and influence of rich, powerful men in control of multinational corporations.

Fitting all that lot into a 140+ minute film was always going to be tricky and a script that avoids the ridiculous even more so. But somehow it works - and that seems largely down to the very excellent cast (Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt et al) and the directing skills of Robert Zemeckis. Even Bill Clinton gets a look in as the US Prez, using gently doctored live footage.

It's all quite slow moving, tension builds slowly (but it is there) and there are some mawkish moments, but these come across as moving rather than (as happens too often in American for this viewer's taste) sick-making. Yes, the 'first contact' theme has been tackled many times before in pulp SF novellas from the 1940s onwards and of course in film, examples including Steven Spielberg's 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and 'ET'.

I'd describe it more along the lines of '2001: A Space Odyssey' updated from the 1960s to the 1990s. Of its type it's rather well done - I'll give it 4/5 stars. Recommended

Hollywood does good! - Contact review by CP Customer

This eponomously-named film is based closely on cosmologist Carl Sagan's book. It handles big ideas with a fair degree of integrity and apart from Mathew McConaughey's rather pop-up performance as an unlikely Fundamentalist preacher friend of Ellie (Jodie Foster), is a realistic portrayal of what might just happen if we really did make contact with aliens. The only other films that handles this sort of material well (i.e. not like the comic-book Star Wars or Star Trek) is Kubrick's 2001 and, arguably, Aliens. Robert Zemeckis is associated with lighter fare (Back to the Future, Roger Rabbit) but here he allows Sagan's vision and challenging ideas to shine - albeit in a glossy Hollywood-ized wrap-around. And no, I don't buy John Hurt's mega-mogul character - but it's still a good device to stitch the film together and keep the action moving along. If you haven't seen CONTACT, it's a great ride - and marvel at the wonderful opening pull-back through space... truly inspirational and (really) awesome!

Interesting SciFi - Contact review by GI

Contact is an interesting science fiction story enhanced by the involvement of Carl Sagan in the film's production and script and who sadly died before the film's completion. I'm not convinced the film holds up well today, not in the presentation of the story or the special effects which are quite a clever way of portraying the events, but in the script and story. The film's theme is presented as a way of melding religious faith with scientific facts & discovery and the posits the idea that just because a lot of people believe in a God there must be some truth in it. I'm not convinced this works. The main thrust of the plot is the search for extraterrestrial life and Jodie Foster plays a young and brilliant astronomer who is obsessed with the search and works for SETI, a science project dedicated to looking for life in the stars. It's an area that is not supported with funding much to her annoyance until one day a signal is heard that seems to come from a distant planet and has a coded message buried in it that is a blueprint for a machine to enable one person to travel to meet the aliens. Of course Foster's character gets chosen after some troubles along the way and the journey is very different than your standard space travel film. The politics and religious viewpoints are very grounded in American society and jar with a more secular audience. So whilst the film is entertaining and has some interesting highlights it's a bit too narrow minded to lift itself into the great sci-fi film arena. Good support cast including Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Angela Bassett and Tom Skerritt.