Yet as the religious man, and the films representation of faith and all that is spiritual, McConnaughey is nothing but an embarrassing joke. Here s a man who goes to Divinity School, but packs it in because he simply can t suppress his sexual urges, and he actually proves this by doing the wild monkey dance with Ellie about 5.4 seconds after meeting her. Apart from that, McConnaughey stares meaningfully a lot, and wiggles his tongue wetly in his mouth, which we assume is supposed to be sexy, but suggests both a moral and intellectual vacuum coexisting in this infantile mannequin. Mercifully, he s not there for long and just pops up now and then to say something corny and do a little more open mouth salivating. A sad misjudgment on the part of Zemeckis to allow such posturing, and despite his star power, McConnaughey s performance and role within the film prove an absurdity.
Contact takes far too long to get going.
There s some fairly unimportant and uninspired waffle about Ellie getting finance, and I m not sure that John Hurt s Hadden is as essential to the film as his screen time suggests. It is once the contact is made that the film really picks up, and it s a shame it arrives so late. Finally then, we get some real tension, and some real conflict. The Aliens Are Coming movie. Battling with her role as scientist and the opposition of the church, Ellie has to face the matter of faith over science, and it is a test that becomes more powerful after her return to earth.