Contact (1997)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 62
Fresh: 39 | Rotten: 23
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 19
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 11
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 180,180
Movie Info
The search for life outside our solar system becomes a personal and spiritual quest for a young researcher. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) is a scientist who lost her faith in God after her parents died when she was a child. However, Ellie has learned to develop a different sort of faith in the seemingly unknowable: working with a group that monitors radio waves from space, Ellie hopes that some day she will receive a coherent message from another world that will prove that there is a world beyond
Jul 11, 1997 Wide
Dec 16, 1997
Warner Home Video
Watch It Now
Cast
-
Jodie Foster
Ellie Arroway -
Matthew McConaughey
Palmer Joss -
James Woods
Michael Kitz -
John Hurt
S.R. Hadden -
Tom Skerritt
David Drumlin -
William Fichtner
Kent -
David Morse
Ted Arroway -
Angela Bassett
Rachel Constantine -
Geoffrey Blake
Fisher -
Max Martini
Willie -
Rob Lowe
Richard Rank -
Jake Busey
Joseph -
Jena Malone
Young Ellie -
Tucker Smallwood
Mission Director -
David St. James
Joint Chief
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Contact Trailer & Photos
All Critics (62) | Top Critics (19) | Fresh (39) | Rotten (23) | DVD (23)
Something like one of those mysterious asteroids that get the astronomers all worked up: a large body of gaseous matter surrounding a relatively small core of solid substance.
When it's good, it's very good. And when it's not, it can be as silly and self-important as a bad '50s sci-fi movie.
Top CriticLike Jodie Foster's hopeful space voyager in the picture, "Contact" may not travel quite as far as it hopes to go, but the trip is worth taking nonetheless.
Begins with a big bang, gradually falls into a lull and finally succumbs to entropy.
Top CriticContact takes forever to lift off.
Features heavy-handed exposition, repetitive, maudlin flashbacks, uneven performances and endless sermonising.
Top CriticThoughtful adaptation of the Carl Sagan novel.
Uma ficção científica que confere peso semelhante aos dois termos do gênero: se sua narrativa ficcional é intrigante e bem desenvolvida, sua ciência jamais se entrega ao implausível.
...one of the best pure science-fiction films since 2001.
No wonder the astronomer's philosophy of contact boils down to this: Don't call me, I'll call you.
With all the science and technology, Zemeckis and the writers made room for spiritual debates (some of them painfully slight), political commentary, and a strangely tepid and inert romance...
Magical, captivating entertainment.
When Contact finally comes alive, it leaves you frightened and thrilled and emotionally overwrought, as only a child can be. The rest is pandering.
The result is a film far too cold-blooded for summer audiences.
Foster's voyage is an astronomical letdown, largely because Zemeckis' ideas of heaven and earth don't extend beyond what can be envisioned as a celluloid event.
It is a good sci-fi yarn.
By hating the two-dimensional villain ... the audience feels they have found 'the bad guy' and aren't challenged to consider the flimsiness in Arroway's or Josse's perspectives.
The story doesn't always do justice to the mind-bending visual opening of Robert Zemeckis' movie, which features Jodie Foster as an annoyingly intense scientist.
Gran, gran película, una de esas que merecería más páginas...
Even the computer generated graphics are a bad fit.
Audience Reviews for Contact
Super Reviewer
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- S.R. Hadden: [over video feed from Mir space station] I wanna show you something. [shows satellite feed to Ellie] Hokkaido Island.
- Ellie Arroway: The systems integration site.
- S.R. Hadden: Look closer. [zooms satellite feed to reveal second machine] First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price? Only, this one can be kept secret. Controlled by Americans, built by the Japanese subcontractors. Who, also, happen to be, recently acquired, wholly-owned subsidiaries...
- Ellie Arroway: [speaks with Hadden] ... of Hadden industries.
- S.R. Hadden: They still want an American to go, Doctor. Wanna take a ride?
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- S.R. Hadden: [to Arroway in the tone of Hannibal Lecter] Clever girl.
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- Kent: Dr. Arroway will be spending her precious telescope time listening for... uh... listening for...
- Ellie Arroway: Little green men.
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- Palmer Joss: You could call me a man of the cloth, without the cloth.
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- Young Ellie: Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?
- Ted Arroway: I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.
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Movie: ID: 10172 Title: Contact Release Date: 1997-07-11 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 2 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- Contacto (ES)
These characters in the film are people which feel real and characters we care about. Contact has a great cast and Jodie Foster especially is in a role of a lifetime here. Her Ellie Arroway is the film's beating heart and she is our vessel through this amazing journey which Zemeckis takes us. Matthew McConaughey is also very good as a religious Palmer Joss and Tom Skerrit is deliciously slimy as a selfish Drumlin. There are also very beautiful and tender moments between younger Ellie and her father. Jena Malone as a Ellie and David Morse as her father share some of the film's most magical and heartbreaking moments.
It is rare to see films like Contact these days. I admire the ideas of Carl Sagan which this film is based on. There are so much information and so many interesting theories about our existence in this universe. Zemeckis is not even trying to give any easy solutions or answers here. Contact is a film to make you think. I guess that it's biggest strenght is it's richness to be equally philosophical, heartfelt and full of awe at the same time. Here is a film which has a power of greatest film magic imaginable.
Zemeckis is close cousin to Steven Spielberg when it comes to filmmaking. They both share same kind of approach to their material. They both are directors with great vision and talent, but they also has advantage of making their characters feel alive.
What makes Contact so great as a film is the fact that it has so big heart. Here is one of the greatest emotionally charged sci-fi advetures that cinema has ever witnessed. Contact is up there with the best of it's genre. This film is simply unforgettable experience and a must see for anyone who loves cinema.