Though not as good as the novel, "Contact" makes a great FILM.

Rating: 9/10 (19 November 1998)

Anyone who has lambasted the film has forgotten the BASIC FUNCTION of any movie: to engage the audience emotionally. Therefore, using Ellie's loss of her dad as a PARTIAL motivation for her search for extra-terrestrial life is valid, necessary, appropriate, and emotional. Humans are emotional creatures. If Zemeckis wanted to make "Contact" cold and without heart, then certainly he would have been faithful to every iota of the book. But this is Hollywood, and to make a movie, you have to tell an accessible story. And let's compare "Contact" to any other movie of 1997. How many other movies actually do provoke ANY intellectual thought? "Contact," though not perfect, provided much food for discussion long after its audiences left the theatre.