With all the science and technology, Zemeckis and the writers made room for spiritual debates (some of them painfully slight), political commentary, and a strangely tepid and inert romance...
Comment
01/17/08
Contact (1997)
65 %
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted: 51
Fresh: 33
Rotten:18
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 30 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... [More]
Starring: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Get This Movie
Reviews for Contact
Click to read the article
06/09/07
Top Critic
Top Critic When Contact finally comes alive, it leaves you frightened and thrilled and emotionally overwrought, as only a child can be. The rest is pandering.
06/08/07
Features heavy-handed exposition, repetitive, maudlin flashbacks, uneven performances and endless sermonising.
06/24/06
Top Critic Foster's voyage is an astronomical letdown, largely because Zemeckis' ideas of heaven and earth don't extend beyond what can be envisioned as a celluloid event.
11/04/05
By hating the two-dimensional villain ... the audience feels they have found 'the bad guy' and aren't challenged to consider the flimsiness in Arroway's or Josse's perspectives.
12/06/04
The story doesn't always do justice to the mind-bending visual opening of Robert Zemeckis' movie, which features Jodie Foster as an annoyingly intense scientist.
06/28/04
A rare find -- a science-fiction film more interested in ideas than scary critters.
10/15/02
You've got some great moments and an intriguing, haunting last act, but most of the movie isn't very exceptional.
09/10/02
...credit the makers of Contact... with making precisely the kind of movie that we imagine [Carl] Sagan would have wanted made.
08/07/02
The build-up of the film is exceptionally well written, as ``Contact'' gives us two attractive adults who actually discuss issues and concepts instead of trading coy double entendres.
06/23/02
When it tries to personify the struggle between skepticism and faith in the relationship between Ellie and her theologian boyfriend, it becomes flat and obvious.
06/18/02
Top Critic
Top Critic Offers an inspired and inspiring close encounter with the ineffable mystery that lies at the heart of each individual and at the core of the majestic universe.
02/26/02
Latest News for Contact
April 10, 2008:
Kim Newman on... The Terrornauts
RT Obscura, the exclusive column by renowned critic Kim Newman, sees the writer plumbing the depths of the RT archive in search of some forgotten gems. In his 15th column, Kim... More...
April 12, 2007:
"Order of the Phoenix" Screenwriter Sits Down for a Chat
When you're the screenwriter stepping in to Chapter Five when a different guy wrote Chapters One through Four, you're bound to have some trouble getting adjusted. Especially... More...
April 07, 2006:
Potter 5 Claims a Release Date
Omar at JoBlo's informs us that the fifth Harry Potter flick, entitled Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will make its debut on July 13th, 2007 -- which should make for... More...
February 03, 2006:
Potter Part 5 Gets Production Underway
Principal photography will commence February 6 at England’s Leavesden Studios on "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth film adaptation of J.K.... More...
Related Forums for Contact
quote thread
by: Ellie Arroway 6/13/04
by: Ellie Arroway 6/13/04
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
 27% |
Eagle Eye |
 78% |
Burn After Reading |
| 53% |
Mamma Mia! |
| 94% |
The Dark Knight |
| 42% |
Death Race |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 21% |
Righteous Kill |
| 07% |
Babylon A.D. |
| 09% |
Bangkok Dangerous |
| 02% |
Disaster Movie |
IGN RSS Feeds