| Overall Grade: |
A+ |
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| Story: |
A |
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| Acting: |
A+ |
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| Direction: |
A+ |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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Intellectual and Intelligent Filmmaking........
by Walter (movies profile)
Feb 11, 2007
6
of
6 people found this review helpful
If you believe that there is life beyond planet Earth, watch this film. If you have even the most minute interest in outer space, watch this film. If you ever wondered what happens when we die, watch this film.
This film features Jodie Foster (from the Silence of the Lambs fame)playing Ellie Arroway, a career astronomer who believes that there is intelligent life in other galaxies that is trying to communicate with Earth. Basically her job is to aim a "giant microphone" in the shape of a massive radar towards clusters of stars in the sky and listen for Interstellar Signals and record them from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. While the rest of the scientific community laughs and ridicules this part of science , Ellie never gives up. You see something seems to drive her to want to know what is up there. She has suffered a tough childhood she loses both parents at an early age. She has not learned to forgive "God" and this is what drives her to learn the truth. As you can see , Ellie is a complex character but Jodie Foster can flat out act her a** off and you actually begin to feel bad for Ellie, but not for long. What Ellie has been waiting for all her life suddenly happens, a message is sent from outer space and now Ellie is no longer ridiculed and instead her work and knowledge become gold and everyone in the scientific community wants a piece of her, they want to know what she knows, what is the message saying, etc....
Well the message is decoded and it turns out that the message gives detailed instructions on how to build a strange machine that no one has ever seen. It is massive, and building it will cost hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars...who is gonna pay for it? What does it do?, and would someone have the intestinal fortitude to get in it????
Well lucky for us...all those questions and more are answered in this movie. The machine getting built is certainly one of my favorite parts of this movie.
So the world has to deal with the reality of the message and its machine and all the moral dilemmas it presents.
Anyways, Ellie becomes a magnet for controversy. She eventually has to fight for her place as leader of the scientific investigation for support she turns to her one potential ally among those with power of influence in the world, Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a respected religious scholar who also is a top-level government advisor. Years earlier in Puerto Rico, Ellie and Palmer had shared a brief relationship that ended because of Ellie's workaholic addictions but years later are brought together by their curiosity for understanding the message and the machine suggests humans build. Ellie nominates herself to be selected as the single representative who will get into the machine and leave the Earth (if it works) to explore the galaxies while seeking the unknown extraterrestrial source and hopefully becoming the first person to make Contact...with "aliens".
I will tell you that her journey is amazing, I wont tell you what she sees or where she goes. The visuals are amazing and you wont believe how majestic Outer Space looks in this film.
I enjoyed the ending becuase it makes you wonder about God, Aliens, humanity and life.
I recommend it and in my opinion it is one of the most intelligent science fiction movies ever.
If you want to see Aliens and UFO eye candy watch Independence Day, E.T., Signs, Men In Black....
But if you want to see an adult, intelligent, thought provoking sci-fi film , watch CONTACT. It may change what YOU believe in. |
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