Good movie of a very bad book.

Rating: 2/10 (13 October 2008)

To be fair, Sagan's 1997 book was astonishingly bad and this movie makes as much of it as one could. In later life, and perhaps under the influence of his wife, Sagan got...well, "flaky" is the only word that I can think of. (To be fair, aging politicians and actors do exactly the same thing.) I used to console myself that perhaps the book, "Contact", was simply one of Sagan's jokes. Perhaps, I thought, he set about writing a book which was the exact opposite of his own beliefs, especially those he discusses in "The Demon-Haunted World". Unfortunately, both the book and now the movie have persuaded me otherwise.
What drives the characters in this move are some peculiar (and unsettling) types of motivation. For example, I, for one, can honestly say that I don't feel lonely and isolated from the universe because there aren't intelligent beings on other planets. In fact, I doubt very much that the knowledge of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe would help my loneliness (or any aspect of my life) one bit. I would find it interesting, but ultimately irrelevant to the meaning of life. Yes, this movie promises that one day there will be communications and travel between worlds that include Earth, but it also suggests that this won't happen until humankind is ready for it, which seems to be a bit after my life is likely to have ended.
Sagan often wrote about claimed encounters with alien intelligent beings and was quick to point out that the aliens invariably delivered sermons on the need for peace, or reassurances about humankind's place in the universe. The "little green men" never give a human an indisputable piece of physical evidence, or impart knowledge (such as the proof for a theorem that has puzzled mathematicians for centuries) that might actually persuade others that contact has actually been made. In "Contact", Sagan does exactly what he preaches against. The protagonist "meets" with a representative of a far-advanced culture/species and is told a bunch of New-age pablum that is intended only to make her feel good. "One day, your species will be ready." Makes me want to barf.
Finally, this movie is like the proverbial river that is half-a-mile wide and one inch deep. The characters are always spouting off about the "meaning of life" and conflicts between science and faith, but they have absolutely nothing to say about them and no new points of view to contribute. It's like using "high-tech" talk in a science-fiction movie without there being any real scientific underpinnings. Sure, people DO search for meaning in their lives. But there are many types of meaning (purpose, significance, worth, etc.) and they are not interchangeable. The dialogue here just tosses about a bunch of nonsense phrases and expects shallow-thinkers to be impressed.
Overall, a very frustrating movie (and book). Just think how much better this would have been if Sagan had been in his prime (and if his wife had stayed out of it.)