Contact

with Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
by Scott Hefflon

Based on the novel by Carl Sagan, you expect some pretty thoughtful concepts to be explored in Contact. More than action sequences and cool effects, you’d really like to delve into some implications, baby. Independence Day, Mars Attacks!, MiB, and all that happy Hollywood shit were obviously not going there, so when viewing something by the “billions and billions of stars” guy, you’d really like some perspective-altering brain fucking. And, to an extent, that’s what you get. The main limitations, of course, is that Contact has to be viewed by dumb-ass mid-Americana that still think digital watches, microwaves, and fax machines are pretty neat. Email involves writing coherent sentences, so the majority still haven’t gotten to that level yet. In other words, Contact only gets as far as Christian-style faith issues and pushy American decision-making. Human evolution is clogged by red tape and archaic mindsets. Typical. Contact also dabbles in being a love story and brings up sanity/conspiracy theories. And nothing is resolved, thankfully, in a nice little package in the closing scenes. Contact leaves room for interpretation and imagination, without really taxing consumers who just like watching all the pretty colors.