If they had left out the last 10 minutes...

Rating: Null/10 (6 October 2002)

I read Sagan's book over ten years ago and only remember the bare outlines of the plot, so where this movie and the book are similar, they should share in the praise and the criticism alike.
For most of this movie, I was mesmerized. I truly felt I was watching an accurate depiction of the events that would likely occur if we actually received a confirmed signal from an exterrestrial intelligence. The wonder, political intrigue, religious unrest and fanatical fears of the lunatic fringe are all easy to accept.
If I had a problem through this part of the movie, it was with Matthew McConaghey's character and how he was portrayed. It's not that they added a thoughtful, charismatic religious leader who questions technology that bothers me. It's more with McConaghey himself -- he's not my favorite actor -- and the fact that Jodie Foster's character would engage in a romantic relationship with a person whose philosophy is 180 degrees opposed to hers and appears to be trying to assist those who are attempting to short-circuit her career. It's too Hollywood.
That aside, as I watched the movie unfold, the sense of anticipation leading up to Dr. Arroway's voyage in "the Machine" had me more than a little excited, all the while asking myself, "How can this movie possibly pay off in the end?" This movie sets a very high hurdle for itself, and it is here where the movie fails completely.
Arroway's encounter with the aliens, represented as a sappy flashback image of her deceased father was nothing more than manipulative movie schlock. How would the aliens have represented themselves to Tom Skerritt's character if he had made the trip, as originally planned? An army of bureaucrats, carrying illuminescent clipboards?
And the message the aliens choose to deliver was even more infuriating that the medium they chose to deliver it. Basically, they said "We'll get back to you." Let's see, you send us a message across millions of miles to convince us to spend a major percentage of our nations' budgets to make the most historic voyage of all time.....FOR THAT??? For me to get so angry at such an event depicted in a movie, forces me to ask how we would all react if it happened in reality: We'd say to the aliens "Go $&#* yourselves. Don't call here again!!"