The last great sci-fi's super-production

Rating: 10/10 (31 August 2010)

After the release in 1968 of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey", sci-fi reached his maturity and it lived great moments of triumph and success in the 70's and 80's with movies like "THX 1138", "Logan's Run", "Blade Runner" and "Terminator", among others. In the 90's, nevertheless, sci-fi lived other kind of moment thank to movies like this. Based on the Carl Sagan's novel book of the same name, I think that this movie exceeded the book to be a show of first class: a spectacular cast, good described characters, impressive F/Xs, excellent locations around the world and a well-studied look in every frame filmed by Robert Zemeckis turns this movie in a tour de force for the people who enjoy of one the best movies appeared in 1997. It is a deep reflection about our origin and place in the cosmos so like an emotional travel to answer the eternal question: "is there anybody out there?"
Behind of this simple question, it hides an intense look inside us. The movie forces us to look inside our hearts and souls, reviewing our hopes and fears about the possibility not to be the only one living race in the universe. Jodie Foster, turned in the heroine of the show, is a scientist who fights against all odds in her search to find extraterrestrial life in the universe. Her search has success when a message from the stars come to Earth that it suggests that not only there's life but it exists a way to contact it. Through of her eyes we see all the human reactions that the existence of alien life causes, from fear and paranoia to euphoria and hope. Through the characters, we can see all kind of people, from good ones and honest who looking for the common good to bad ones that they are crazy or they want success and power at all costs. Like all good sci-fi's movie, in the end "Contact" talks about humanity, about human condition and about human beings.
After "Contact" there hasn't been other movie like this. No one of the next sci-fi hits (Armageddon, Pitch Black, Alien Vs Predator, Pandorum, etc...) kept the capacity to make a reading of the humanity like the old movies did ("2001", "Blade Runner" or the own "Contact"). I think that this ability, obligatory to make any great sci-fi movie, has been lost. Above his mistakes, "Contact" mixes elements that turns him in an amazing show for all ages: personal dramas, ambition, search of the truth, conspiracy, love, treachery, loss of beloved beings, thriller and includes a little of comedy. The visual force is so big that by it and others reasons I say that "Contact" is the last great sci-fi's super-production: because the search of extraterrestrial life species is essentially the search of our own identity like human species.