A truly great movie, and it's science fiction!

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 1999)

Sure the premise of this film sounds boring and overdone. Aliens contact earth...blah..blah...blah. But this movies has a great story that was originally a novel by Carl Sagan. The movie is about a woman who finds a radio signal from another planet. Who better to play this role than Jodie Foster. When this film came out, it was her first role in years and a great one for her. It's like the writers wrote the screenplay with her in mind. She plays a woman who is driven to find life in outerspace. Raised by her father, Ellie, learns to be interested in space and astronomy. From the flashback sequences from her childhood, there is a great line that her father tells her. "If we are the only living things in the universe, seems like an awful waste of space." The story follows Ellie to many satellite sites, where she tries to find CONTACT, through listening to radio waves. Several arrays later, she hears something that turns out to be a signal. When she tells the world what else can happen but....Chaos. The project quickly becomes very political, when a signal with directions to build a transport device to the "aliens" home.
This movie is wonderfully directed by Robert Zemekis. Great special effects. Jodie Foster is brilliant and so is Matthew Maconahey, who plays as an important religious man and the romance attraction to Ellie. There are moments where the movie drags and needs a kick in the butt, but in the end this is a great movie. It had a wonderful and complex story. 9/10