Contemporary Hollywood Garbage

Rating: 1/10 (9 August 2009)

It gets off to a good start. A noisy Earth recedes into space as the silence of an implacable universe overwhelms the senses. And I must say that a SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) inspired story could have had real promise. But most everything else about this film reeks of modern Hollywood garbage. They took the novel of a a respected astronomer, Carl Sagan, and turned his work into cinematic junk.
Jodie Foster is a fine actress, and I like her. But she's the wrong person for the role she plays. Except for her character and the blind researcher, none of the characters are sympathetic. I couldn't stand that Drumlin person (played by Tom Skerritt). Smarmy Matthew McConaughey is super annoying, and his role is unnecessary. But much, much worse are the cameo appearances of real-life boob tube personalities and assorted real-life politicians, offering their "comments" on Earth's contact with ET. Are we, as viewers, supposed to be impressed with this showy display of "teevee" celebrities? Their presence is nauseating.
Not only do these self-important, disingenuous talking heads date the film, their tiresome faces and hackneyed babble sabotage whatever other-worldly mood or atmosphere the film, as sci-fi, could have imparted. Every time one of these pompous "know-it-alls" came on the screen, I fast-forwarded the DVD.
The film's big-budget grandstanding is unbelievable: overblown special effects, irksome engineering lingo, huge sets, every acting extra in existence plus his or her extended family, background music that is highly manipulative, and on and on and on. Yet, for all the ninety million dollar budget, the film's climax is an unimaginative cop out that conveys no useful or original insights.
Bombastic in presentation, and very pleased with itself, "Contact" is what I would have expected from a Ron Howard movie: big-budget, ostentatious visuals, a story that lacks thematic depth, and aimed at an audience of fourteen-year-old boys and clueless adults. It's the same audience that Hollywood has been pandering to for decades.