May 9th, 2010 | 
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The opening and closing moments of Robert (Forrest Gump) Zemeckis’s Contact astonish viewers with the sort of breathtaking conceptual imagery one hardly ever sees in movies these day–each is an expression of the heroine’s lifelong quest (both spiritual and scientific) to explore the meaning of human existence through contact with extraterrestrial life. The movie begins by soaring far out into space, then returns dizzyingly to earth until all the stars in the heavens condense into the sparkle in one little girl’s eye. It ends with that same girl as an adult (Jodie Foster)–her search having taken her to places beyond her imagination–turning her gaze inward and seeing the universe in a handful of sand. Contact traces the journey between those two visual epiphanies. Based on Carl Sagan’s novel, Contact is exceptionally thoughtful and provocative for a big-budget Hollywood science fiction picture, with elements that recall everything from 2001 to The Right Stuff. Foster’s solid performance (and some really incredible alien hardware) keep viewers interested, even when the story skips and meanders, or when the halo around the golden locks of rising-star-of-a-different-kind Matthew McConaughey (as the pure-Hollywood-hokum love interest)reaches Milky Way-level wattage. Ambitious, ambiguous, pretentious, unpredictable–Contact is all of these things and more. Much of it remains open to speculation and interpretation but whatever conclusions one eventually draws, Contactdeserves recognition as a rare piece of big-budget studio film making on a personal scale. –Jim Emerson
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My brother warned me not to watch this film, so to annoy him I watched it with him. Overall it’s well made with good acting and enjoyable. Theres a point in all films like this, that you start trying to guess whats going on. I started throwing suggestions at my brother with everyone came the reply “no it’s not as good as that”. This carried on untill the end when I could not believe what I saw. This film builds and builds only to ultimately dissapoint. I’ve warned you about the ending. If your at all cynical stay away, if pap is what your after lap some of this up.
Rating: 1 / 5
A passable movie extracted from a passable book. Some decent imagery and some fine performances from the main protagonists. The special effects were not that special.Contact shows religious intolerance and fear, it shows politics at its worst and humanity at its strangest and introduces us to the idea that we might not be alone. All in all, a decent enough film that is perhaps a little slow for mainstream audiences and a little too cerebral in places for the masses.
Rating: 3 / 5
I’m sure other reviewers have made the same point but if I make the point again maybe more people will be warned. The film starts quite convincingly with an intercept of a signal from space, jumps headlong into a naff conspiracy/political space race and winds up with the biggest let down of any first contact film you can name. If close encounters was “close” this encounter is light years away from being satisfying. I won’t spoil it because you might watch it on TV but dont buy it.
Rating: 2 / 5
I should have been suspicious of this movie when I saw that Matthew McConaughey was in it. In fact I only bought it ‘cos I heard that part of synched up with a Pink Floyd track or something.
The film starts fairly promisingly with Jodie Foster searching for Alien life. Then McConaughey turns up as a priest and the whole thing becomes as flat as a pair of Farah slacks fresh from the Corby trouser press of the Hollywood Cheese hotel.
McConaughey’s performance as a kind of semi-mulleted trendy vicar ruins the whole thing. Cue a series of ridiculous “moral debates” between himself and Foster about the existence of God and so on. i.e., she believes in aliens but has no proof they exist and he believes in God – likewise no proof. It’s so bad it’s just embarrassing to watch. Even a four year old child would find their intelligence being insulted by this poorly thought out subplot, as the movie tries to ram it’s simplistic theories down your throat with a great big wooden (and I mean wooden) spoon.
Things take a further turn for the worse later when Foster goes on a space trip to another planet and the friendly alien takes the form of her Dad. The special effects in this whole space-trip sequence have the kind of unconvincing and uninvolving quality that only CGI can give. And the Alien taking the form of her dad is a bit of a cop out and also something that you could see coming a mile off. I would have much prefered a big slimey slobbering alien swamp monster to be honest, and if she’d carted McConaughey along and fed him to it then all the better.
Rating: 1 / 5
Well, after all the hype about this film when released I can say that it was a load of rubbish. After sitting for 1.5 hours thru this dribble to get to the end to see the alien… you don’t. It is her dad, on a beach. Ahhhhhhhhh! I also disliked the ‘Christian’ guy who was so in touch with God, yet was happy to bonk whats-her-name. I did, however, give the movie 1 star for its sheer laughability. Especially right at the end where Jodi Foster is giving her little pep talk to the little kids and she pauses (as does the camera) on the little fat girl, to say that ‘anyone’ can make a difference etc. (i.e. even a fat kid). This time America has gone too far. Buy Star Trek, it is far more believable.
Rating: 1 / 5