CONTACT Movie Review
Reviewed by Robert Thompson 7-26-97

ORDER the VHS VIDEO     ORDER the DVD VIDEO

CONTACT Starring Jodie Foster is a superb movie.
It works on many levels, and I think Jodie Foster deserves an Academy Award nomination for her performance.

In CONTACT, She plays an astrophysicist searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Matthew McConaghay plays the new-agey guru who wants her ?, and Tom Skerritt plays her ex-mentor, ex- employer, and now competitor.

I went to this movie mostly because I was in a really lousy mood, didn't feel like working, and because I kind of like Jodie Foster. I left the movie feeling great, and can recommend it to everyone, whether you believe in alien life or not. There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from this movie.

The only complaint that I have about is a very picky geographical detail: It appears that Chaco Canyon has been moved about 100 miles or so and is now located at the VLA (Very Large Array) radiotelescope site in New Mexico. Of course if you haven't explored the areas in question, you would never notice.

I did not really expect to like this movie so much. It was based upon a book written by the late Carl Sagan, who I never cared for. While he did make some important contributions to popular science and the space program, he always seemed to me an arrogant pedagogue, and a man without a soul. I don't know if the screenplay deviated much from the book that this was based upon, but I may have to rethink my opinion about Sagan- He may have a lot more depth that I gave him credit for.