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Contact (Special Edition)
 
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Contact (Special Edition)

Jodie Foster (Actor), Matthew McConaughey (Actor), Robert Zemeckis (Director) | Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | Format: DVD
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (358 customer reviews)

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From Amazon.co.uk

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

Amazon.com Essential Video

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, Contact deserves recognition as a rare piece of big-budget studio filmmaking on a personal scale. --Jim Emerson

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Customer Reviews

358 Reviews
5 star:
 (231)
4 star:
 (53)
3 star:
 (19)
2 star:
 (21)
1 star:
 (34)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (358 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1.0 out of 5 stars A horrible distortion of Carl Sagan's message, Mar 21 2003
By 
Francois Tremblay (Montreal, QC Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Ce commentaire est de: Contact (With Extra Footage) (Widescreen) (VHS Tape)
Did Carl Sagan write this horrible movie ?! I expected something profound and spiritual... this is "junk". On a more positive note, the sense of wonder evoked by the introductory scene does persist in the rest of the movie. Too bad it is supported by "junk".

Some positive (+) and negative (-) points :

- The "we all need beliefs" argument rears its ugly head more than once. This is apparently the morale of the story.
- Also according to this movie, prosperity and technology makes people less happy and connected (guess in the Middle Ages everyone was everyone's best buddy - crime ? wars ? what's that ?).
- In this warped alternate universe, SETI is actually useful and approved by private individuals, instead of being a big government boondoggle for scientists.
+ Shows that faith can only validate itself in violence.
-+ "Useful science" and paranormal beliefs are both portrayed as negative.

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1.0 out of 5 stars No wonder they waited till Carl Sagan was dead., Mar 1 2003
By 
P. Robson (Norwich, Norfolk United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Ce commentaire est de: Contact (Special Edition) (DVD)
That sounds harsh. If anything it's generous.

Undoubtedly the worst part of this awful remake of an excellent, thought proving book is at the end, where in big letters it comes up with the words "For Carl".

At that point I nearly threw something at the screen.

Carl Sagan was an atheist. Contact, the book, contains some intelligent, thought provoking, discussions between two of the main characters ; the atheist Arroway, and the Christian Joss. The "extremist" views on both sides are represented by Drumlin and Rankin. Rankin, as far as I can see, has been removed altogether. Most of the discussions between the two main characters have been rewritten so that the balance becomes blatantly pro-religion. For example, at one point, the Joss character asks Arroway "Did you love your father - prove it" which is the asinine kind of thing an asinine religious person would ask ; and absolutely not the kind of thing the Palmer Joss character in the book would ask.

Worse still is the end of the film. In the book, Arroway is basically paid off and hushed up. In the film, there is a big set piece investigation in which Arroway is asked "questions" - this is an unsubtle piece of propoganda in favour of religious faith.

Back to "For Carl". Carl Sagan ; the author I've read in Contact and various other books would have disowned this movie, and probably stopped it. Hence the title.

Does it matter ? If you like dumb movies, probably not, it then just becomes are rather pointless low level action flick. But then again, you might as well by a Schwarzenegger film for that.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Was this a movie or did they try to promote CNN?, Oct 18 2002
Ce commentaire est de: Contact (Special Edition) (DVD)
When you want to create a world for a big budget science fiction movie, it has to litterally be it';s own world with little or no connection with the everyday world. Showing CNN news casters in this movie from start to finish was clearly a case of over-kill and took away from what the film was supposed to be, had George Lucas or Steven Spielberg made this movie, it would have been a lot more then what was delivered here, which was not much.
Carl Sagan's best known films and statements on Mankind's place in the universe was much better explored with the PBS series, COSMOS.
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