Not perfect but highly watchable

Rating: 7/10 (16 December 2014)

Contact with alien life form is an ever green story concept for movies. There are 2 very distinct categories.
The first type is actually showing the aliens. Among them the most recent was Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" which I have mixed feelings about or more traditionally the Star Wars or Star Trek series.
The second type is not showing the aliens at all and often has some sort of open ending, probably the most famous is Kubrick's "2001".
Both types are considered a double sided blade. If the shown alien is not appealing enough or is not wrapped in properly sequenced mystery, it will be categorized as 2 bit science fiction and in case of unseen alien, the end of the movie may not be appealing to the target audience, the younger people.
I recall the first time I got my hand on this movie, then on a VHS tape and I simply bypassed it because it looked too slow and talky for my age, I was 17 or 18. Now at age 34 I watched it and I really enjoyed it specially after seeing shams like Interstellar!
The screenplay is solid with minimal holes. Everything has an explanation which passes to the audience mostly by vision not just words. Probably the most interesting part is the opening, the further we move from earth, the further we move back in time. I consider it a masterpiece, there is no narrative but just video, motion and it passes what it intends. I have to admit that I loved it and I got hooked immediately. The underlaying love story is touching and full of chemistry although it was never a main part of movie and virtually had nothing to do with the resolve. I'm not a scientist but as an space enthusiast I know some stuff about physics. Of course most of the scientific part was fiction but not in a bad way. One who is familiar with these things would only say "Its possible". Movie is rather long and with minimal action but never bores.
Of course there is some issues. From the discovery of the alien machine plans to actually building it moved very fast which never happens in reality as just decoding the plans and manufacturing the parts takes years to achieve, no need to mention that some technologies need to be developed just to make parts even if the blue print is available otherwise every single industrial nation on earth would replicate the B2 bomber in 6 months. Making something out of a blue print is way different than the reverse engineering. That's forgivable as this is a movie and no one wants to see the beautiful Ellie to go to space in her 70s!
Probably the biggest question mark is that why the tribunal in congress. The machine and the pod looked like intact after the experience so send another one to confirm. That was a real hole in the screenplay which could have been easily fixed by somehow destroying the machine after experience. a 500 billion dollar machine got destroyed and of course no one has the money to rebuild it but if the machine is intact which it was, all those things after the launch was nonsense. This is something that I can not bypass, there should be no holes in screenplay, if there is hole, movie loses stars and this one lost one star for that.
The second star was lost because of failure to come with a logical explanation why the aliens sent the blueprint. She traveled through multiple wormholes to another universe to see an alien disguised himself as her dad in Pensacola. And that illusion actually said nothing to her nor showed anything and sent her back. That small steps he mentioned actually was not a step at all however I can not blame Carl Sagan (Author of the novel) and other people who were involved with the story as it is extremely complicated. Even Kubrick couldn't close his infamous 2001 properly.
Highly watchable movie but I would like to see more refined ending and reasoning if not perfect. 7/10