Very interesting and worthy but, my god, but it is full of itself!

Rating: Null/10 (3 February 2004)

Since childhood, Ellie Arroway has been interested in space and radio signals, spurred on by the death of her parents early in life. As an adult she is a scientist who listens to space for signals from the stars, however her programme has it's funding cut and she finds herself looking for private funding. Four years after securing such funding, she discovers a mathematical signal from space. As the Government gets involved the signal reveals more information - thousands of pages of mechanical schematics. As the design is built, the world reacts to news of alien life.
It is hard to complain about a film that tries to be an intelligent sci-fi at a time when the genre reaped greater box office rewards if you were shooting them like Independence Day. It is a shame then, that the film doesn't totally work as a whole, even if it has moments that are thought provoking, exciting or interesting. The plot is great in essence, however it bogs itself down with too much in the way or spiritual philosophising and emotional back story that, while being an OK idea, just complicates the issue unnecessarily. The essential questions of who and why are lost in bigger debates that the script simply can't cope with - turning some discussions into weird pillow talk between Ellie and Joss!
What it does do well is capture the fight between religion and science in this area - both come off equally well and it was well done that the film didn't slant too much in favour of either. The politics and religious zealotry is given a bit of a pushing - but the good thing is; it never actually felt unlikely! In fact, if anything, the project being a multinational project and scientis given a reasonably public free hand is more fiction that some elements here. The film opens very well with a great pull back into space, where you really feel the vastness of space, and ends with a visually impressive scene that would have had much more impact if it had just lost the whole emotional back story connection (regardless of `to make you comfortable' reasons). Between these two moments the film generally keeps things moving with the sense of discovery, but it does regularly get bogged down and it needs a terrorist to add some action - we could easily have condensed or lost a good 20 minutes of this film and things would have been better for it.
The cast is quite deep but they don't all do well. Foster is very good I felt, her character is developed reasonably well for a sci-fi and her performance is good. McConaughey is less fortunate, his character is a bit of a mystery to me and the early scenes with him are pointless apart from setting him up for later. Morse is lumbered with a horrid two-part role, neither of which is very good. However the support cast is good and includes such actors as Woods, Fichtner, Skerritt (who is surprisingly welcoming of the aliens all things considered!), Lowe, Bassett, Busey, Hurt and Bill Clinton as himself!
Overall this is a good film despite being weighed down a script too full of sentiment, back story and unclear philosophising. The essence is good and it has a basic good story, start and ending. I enjoyed it and have seen it more than once but it is remiss of me not to admit that it easily could have been tighter, smarter and more satisfying.