Good intelligent sci-fi from the modern age of sci-fi films

Rating: 8/10 (21 April 2006)

I've only seen this film a couple of times and have never seen it on the big screen which would surely do it justice but it is interesting that despite it's big budget and huge cast of special, visual and sound effects personnel it isn't really a big special effects type film. It least it doesn't depend on the special effects to carry the story. There is a story here. Based on the novel by Carl Sagan who consulted on the film up until the time of his death, this screenplay is wonderfully drafted by James V. Hart and Michael Goldberg. Jodie Foster is a radio astronomer who learned to love the mystery of space through the hope and wonderment that she shared with her father in listening to ham radio when she was a little girl. In her research she makes contact with intelligent life from the far reaches of space that give her coded instructions on how to build a device to traverse time and space to visit their world. A project so expensive that only a government or someone extremely wealthy from the private sector could fund. Joining Foster in the cast are Tom Skerrit, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, Angela Basset and Rob Lowe. Robert Zemeckis who has had a diverse and successful career with such films as the Back to the Future series, Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Romancing the Stone and the Polar Express directs. Zemeckis certainly knows how to handle a big budget production and gets the most from his producers dollars. Several veterans of Zemeckis films including cinematographer's Don Burgess and Editor Arthur Schmidt are on board this project. There is a lot going on in this movie and the weaving of footage of real life characters throughout this film takes away from some of the story itself but this is a good sci-fi film and I would give it an 8.5 out of 10.