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Rating: Null/10 (18 April 2001)

Spoilers herein.
How horrible to have this as a legacy.
For those who don't know, Sagan was a rather weak scientist who became a popular science journalist promoting a genuine sense of wonder, and who further became a champion in battling pseudoscience and rank ignorance. He was criticized for overly simplifying, and much of that was undue. But he did cast a false battle between science and religion, and then weave this simple, preachy morality play around it.
Actually, the sad truth is that most science is based on the deist notion that laws somehow pre-exist our exploration of them. Some science is pure of religion, at least the normal kind of deism, but that fascinating truth is too complex to build celebrity upon; too complex to simplify for mass consumption. So Sagan tossed it early in his career.
It is actually not true that `mathematics is the only true universal language,' at least not the specific abstractions used here which are merely descriptors convenient for human brain chemistry. First order logic, the basis of the 3D projection here, is arbitrarily cast. `It makes sense if you think like a Vegan.' Later: `the message is written in the language of science.' How unknowledgeable. My point is that the science here is quite bogus (on straight scientific terms) when extrapolated this deeply.
Religion IS simplification of complexity into simple oppositions for the masses. And that is precisely what Sagan is guilty of here. The conflict with religion is miscast. The story is unprofound, an empty legacy. So easy to poke fun at believers in stupid superstitions, but then what?
No matter. Films are rarely true, rarely profound. But would have been better for this story not to lean too heavily on the idea that `it could happen this way.'
But how about this as a film since story is mostly incidental in important films? Zemeckis annoys with other films, since he bends the cinematic vision to the trite storyline (`Gump,' `Cast Away'). But here, he really does please. Around this lacey logic, he does great visual storytelling, great framing. His camera never leaves the point of quiet observation, so is very conservative. His choreographed group shots thrill; some of his long tracking pans almost exhaust. I wonder if he does this to subliminally establish the `hereness' of living here. The colors really work to frame reality. Another framing to establish the hereness, the emphasis on surroundings: the competence of many supporting actors surpasses that of the leads.
The commentaries on the DVD are much better narrative than the story.
Jody's not an external actor which is a problem in a role which is supposed to be archetypical. in which we are supposed to identify. She is too angular, too sharp to represent humanity or the human mind. And she is not quirky enough to convince she has genius. If you ever met a genius or even a world class scientist, you'd sense a strangeness, an other-worldliness that is missing here. Jody's readings are comic Buckrogerisms.
The best effect was the attempt at the machine: superconducting massive rings tieing gravitational knots -- would have been nice to emphasize that the rings moved apparently erratically with flashes of polygonal logic. (Should have been five not four machine rings if the docahedal pod wrapping is to make sense.) The worst effect was the journey: Alice meets Kubrick -- making a knotted wormhole look like any sort of forward movement was childish indeed.