**** Great science-fiction with a message

Rating: Null/10 (28 March 2001)

One of my favourite ways to spend two and a half hours is to watch this excellent film over and over again. I can't remember any science-fiction film after 2001: A Space Odyssey to be this thought-provoking, and while Contact is not quite as profound a statement as the aforementioned opus, it still has quite a lot to say for itself. Jodie Foster plays an earnest scientist who spends her whole life searching for extra-terrestrial life and finds vindication when a message is received from outer space. Naturally, it throws the world into a huge frenzy, and despite the efforts of kitschy bad guy Tom Skerritt and military operations-head James Woods, she gets to go on a journey to the heart of the universe and see whether or not she can find the answers she's looking for.