compelling misfire

Rating: 5/10 (26 November 2007)

The movie has a structure that is very satisfying to keep up with. Where most movies have one, or at the very most two, intriguing developments, this one has nine or ten, that arrive with great regularity. Zemeckis' camera work and tricks (Look again...) are nice and serve the story well. There are scenes in it that make my hair stand on end. I wish after the astonishing trip in the machine that we didn't spend 2 hours getting across the universe, to get a saccharine, anti-climactic homily from dad. And the stupid preachy final scene with religious MacConaghey coming out on top is grating. Someone should have told them "You don't have an ending."
Unfortunately narrative elements & characters necessary to set up a bunch of bad guys, bog down additional viewings. The movie just has too many a-holes; Tom Skerritt, James Woods, Angela Bassett, Junior Busey, Rob Lowe; I wish this crowd of antagonists wasn't here, because the movie could be so much more than the usual pissing match with some villainous jerk(s). You can't investigate metaphysical beauty while mired in earth-bound pettiness. Would you watch 2001 and decide, "Boy, could this use a love interest, and a bad scientist!"? Contact quickly becomes burdened with the tiresome religion vs. science debate. Wouldn't the movies be a nice place to be free from the views of the corrupt, immoral religious right?
The intertextual casting of Jody Foster as the mannish Ellie Arroway plays uncomfortably off the allegations that she's a lesbian. (i.e. the campy scene where she tells Mattthew McConaghey to leave his number) I'm not hating, my closest friend is a lesbian - but the mating subplot is bizarre to watch. Has anyone ever looked less comfortable with a member of the opposite sex? It makes you think her strategy of choosing leading-man-less, love-less scripts (Panic Room, Flightplan, The Accused, The Brave One, Anna and the King, Nell, Little Man Tate) is the right choice for her. On the other hand, Foster sells the trip with her acting skills.
The final straw is the asinine Matthew MacConaghey, in the role of an asinine, babbling, douche-bag/nu-age priest. I cannot bear to watch even a few seconds of this idiot in any movie. No matter what he's trying to portray, what shines through is "d-u-m-b." If you dreamt up the complex (ahem...) role of a sexually-active religious figure who is the heroine's antagonist/lover, would you get MacConaghey to play it? The man can barely move his lips correctly to form words. The rest of the movie teems with so much liberal earnestness that this viewer, liberal also, wanted to retch. Every time I watch it, I want to strangle the (over)actor who plays the blind nerd every time he speaks.
All of this is unfortunate, because the movie successfully treats science as a wondrous, methodical discipline. I can't name a single other movie that does that.