There is so much that is right with this film and so much that is wrong, it is hard to know where to begin to evaluate the ideas.
Contact (1997)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:53
Fresh:35
Rotten:18
Average Rating:6.7/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 33 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Synopsis: Devoted astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway undertakes an emotional and spiritual journey after receiving the message she's waited for all her life--a mysterious signal beamed in from alien beings, who... Devoted astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway undertakes an emotional and spiritual journey after receiving the message she's waited for all her life--a mysterious signal beamed in from alien beings, who pass along instructions for building and piloting a craft that will presumably survive the passage from Earth to their home. While struggling to fund her mission, Arroway also struggles with her feelings about the nature of things, particularly after meeting a charismatic New Age believer who questions her disbelief in God. A deliberately-paced, meditative adaptation of the eponymous novel by Ann Druyan and "pop" astronomer Carl Sagan, who died during production. [More]
Starring: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt
Starring: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Angela Bassett, Rob Lowe, William Fichtner, Geoffrey Blake, Jena Malone, Sami Chester, Timothy McNeil, Laura Elena Surillo, Henry Strozier, Michael Chaban, Max Martini, Larry King, Thomas Garner, Conroy Chino, Dan Gifford, Vance Valencia
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Composer: Alan Silvestri
Producer: Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Joan Bradshaw, Lynda Obst
Story: Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
Screenwriter: James V. Hart, Michael Goldenberg
Producer: Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey
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Reviews for Contact
Jodie Foster is great, and Zemeckis knows how to use film technology without compromising a story’s humanity, but the real star of Contact is its author, Carl Sagan.
While it's hardly a perfect movie, Robert Zemeckis's Contact is one of the most 'religious' science fiction movies ever made.
Less sci-fi blockbuster, more spiritual thinkpiece, this is a Close Encounters Of The Third Kind for the X-Files generation.
If [Sagan] does a better job of asking them than answering them, that is at least consistent with the scientists creed that the only sin is to be afraid to ask the right questions -- and to be open-minded about the answers.
An intellectually and theologically challenging, $100 million summer blockbuster? Who'd have imagined?
As is the Sagan way -- it lets science hold its own against religion without reducing either to mush.
Zemeckis uses special effects to suggest the climactic events without upstaging them.
After almost two-and-a-half hours of tantalizing buildup, the closing scenes' meager payoff of banal, Jack Handeyish hoo-haw creates a frustrating sense of intellectual coitus interruptus.
Contact is at its most relaxed when it sheds its intellectual pretensions and reveals its media-wise sense of humor.
Few films glorify the unknown and relish ambiguity to the extent that Contact does.
The film balances characterisation with the adventure of space discovery, and harnesses advanced filmmaking techniques for the best possible result in entertainment with meaning.
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 24% 24% | G-Force |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 90% 90% | District 9 |
| 86% 86% | 500 Days of Summer |
| 63% 63% | Extract |
| 06% 06% | All About Steve |
| 78% 78% | It Might Get Loud |
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