It's hard to say whether or not I liked it.

Rating: Null/10 (4 February 2001)

Here you have a three hour long movie that deals with the discovery of aliens, unknown life forms, perhaps god, and anything else that could come up in a discussion.
'Contact' is definitely one of the best films ever put together. Why? Well, it has intelligent writing which is just enough for me to consider it to be great. But there's more to it like the good acting, the budget and how they used it in a fairly enjoyable way, the idea to bring this discovery/project to the screen, and above all, the fact that this is the future or the present.
I personally found this film to be a little hard to follow. Yes, it had extremely creative and intelligent writing, which is why I liked it. But it also brought up many questions, answers and a script that I just couldn't keep up with. Obviously nobody else seemed to have this problem. In my opinion, you need to be partly up to today's technology to just get a grip on the plot outline. I could follow it for the most part, but when Ellie took her trip at the end, I really lost interest mainly because it was too complex.
Jodie Foster was terrific as usual. She really put everything she could into the role of Ellie Arroway. She was nominated for a Golden Globe but sadly lost. The film was nominated for an Academy for Best Sound but lost. Somebody please explain to me why she wasn't nominated for and Academy Award. This was a performance that certainly was worthy of this award but wasn't even considered as one of the nominees. That has got to be one of the most disappointing things because she truly did deserve it. Not to mention that the movie itself wasn't even nominated. I'll get back to the cast. Matthew McConaughey was partly a good choice for being casted as Palmer Joss. His effort put into this role was once again very good. There's one problem. McConaughey just doesn't seem like the character that he portrays. Foster could get away with it but this guy can't. His performance: good. Expecting me to believe that he was this highly intelligent scientist: get real. Tom Skerritt who plays David Drumlin was okay but nothing fantastic. A good choice for this role but it could have been handled by a number of other people. There were so many people in this film with important roles that I can't remember them. Well anyway, the entire cast was good. Playing a scientist isn't always easy. I'll hand it to the crew for creating such a huge cast. Have you taken a look at everyone that was involved in this movie? This was a good way to make the idea and the plot come alive.
When we're dealing with a Sci-Fi movie, a big budget is bound to come up. Most movies have a tendency to make the special effects overcome the film by turning the majority of it in an animated form. 'Contact' did have a big budget and everything was going good. I was pleased that there were some effects but not too many. Then that image was ruined. When it neared the end of the film or whenever Ellie finally takes her space trip, the animation did become too much. Her 'psychedelic' trip into wherever she landed was enough for me. Even the part where the machine (pod) gets destroyed. But it was ruined when the Pensacola drawing became somewhat real. Once again, this movie turned out like all of the others. This is the future of movies but is there any reason why 1 film has to have such a large budget to please the audience?
I've yet to read the book. Half of the people consider the book to be better while the other half believes that bringing the book to life was a better choice. All I can say is that it was good to see a movie that actually did take a lot of time to create and didn't look like something that was put together in a week. I think that when a movie is created based on a novel, it shows that people still take the time to get the facts straight. Although this movie did take a lot of research to get it done, I found that it also had quite a few errors. Any other movie, I would frown, but being that 'Contact' had a good plot to go off of, I'll let it slide.

While the budget had to cover the effects, it also covered a lot of changes of scenery. The machine itself, the control station or whatever the correct name for it is, the White House, the strip of satellites, and every other thing that was shown was greatly designed/set up. There is nothing better in a movie than seeing different shots of landmarks or anything. The worst is of course, viewing the same old set for the length of the movie.
While I can say that I somewhat enjoyed the film, I did find some things that could be improved. 1) If this movie would have been shortened, it would have made it even better. I realize that a lot of time had to be taken up in order for the audience to get the real knowledge out of the point the crew was trying to make. And that this isn't the type of movie that can fit into an hour or two. But three!? 2) This film is definitely a serious film. Some basic or common knowledge about space could come in handy in order to follow it. It wouldn't hurt. But the writers, directors and everyone involved might have aimed a little too high.
Did I like it or didn't I? I can't completely answer that for the reasons I have tried to explain. 'Contact' is an underrated film and Jodie Foster wasn't recognized enough for her performance. Worthy of a Best Picture nomination? Sure, why not. I've seen worse films nominated let alone win the award.