Good movie, disappointed with the ending however

Rating: 8/10 (7 January 2004)

(Possible Spoilers)
Apart from the ending, I quite like this movie. It is realistic in many ways in that we are most likely to make contact with Extra-terrestrials via signals received from space.
The acting is pretty good, especially from McConaughey.
I did not however like the ending to this movie. When Ellie travels to Vega or wherever in that travelling device, the aliens don't even show themselves. Instead we just see an image of her father on some blurry beach. I was very disappointed in this. The aliens think that she can't handle her seeing them as they really are? Give me a break. Also, they don't even give her something to prove that she has really travelled there, and when she comes back to Earth, nobody believes her and she is ridiculed. There are unanswered questions like when the next person is supposed to travel. All the aliens can tell her is that is has always been done this way. Basically, we learn very little from this movie at the end. Perhaps a sequel would be a good idea where someone travels to Vega and stays there for a period to learn.
Also, the fact that Ellie was initially rejected for the mission because she wasn't a religious person was a little unrealistic. The mission was to travel to meet aliens, not God.
To summarise, I enjoyed this movie apart from the ending which I thought was a cop out.