| Actor |
Production Team |
| Jodie Foster |
Eleanor Ann Arroway
|
| Matthew McConaughey |
Palmer Joss
|
| Sami Chester |
Vernon
|
| Geoffrey Blake |
Fisher
|
| William Fichtner |
Kent Clark
|
| Jena Malone |
Young Ellie
|
| Timothy McNeil |
Davio
|
| David Morse |
Ted Arroway
|
| Tom Skerritt |
David Drumlin
|
|
|
| Director |
Robert Zemeckis |
| Producer |
Steve Starkey; Robert Zemeckis |
| Writer |
Carl Sagan; Michael Goldenburg |
| Studio |
|
Warner Bros. |
|
|
| Plot |
| The opening and closing moments of Robert (Forrest Gump) Zemeckis's Contact astonish viewers with the sort of breathtaking conceptual imagery one hardly ever sees in movies these day--each is an expression of the heroine's lifelong quest (both spiritual and scientific) to explore the meaning of human existence through contact with extraterrestrial life. The movie begins by soaring far out into space, then returns dizzyingly to earth until all the stars in the heavens condense into the sparkle in one little girl's eye. It ends with that same girl as an adult (Jodie Foster)--her search having taken her to places beyond her imagination--turning her gaze inward and seeing the universe in a handful of sand. Contact traces the journey between those two visual epiphanies. Based on Carl Sagan's novel, Contact is exceptionally thoughtful and provocative for a big-budget Hollywood science fiction picture, with elements that recall everything from 2001 to The Right Stuff. Foster's solid performance (and some really incredible alien hardware) keep viewers interested, even when the story skips and meanders, or when the halo around the golden locks of rising-star-of-a-different-kind Matthew McConaughey (as the pure-Hollywood-hokum love interest) reaches Milky Way-level wattage. Ambitious, ambiguous, pretentious, unpredictable--Contact is all of these things and more. Much of it remains open to speculation and interpretation, but whatever conclusions one eventually draws, Contact deserves recognition as a rare piece of big-budget studio filmmaking on a personal scale. --Jim Emerson |
| Movie Details |
| Genre |
Drama; Adventure; Science Fiction; Fantasy; Romance; Mystery |
| Country |
 USA
|
| Language |
English |
| Running Time |
153 mins |
|
| Audience Rating |
PG (Parental Guidance) |
| Movie Release Date |
1997 |
| Color |
Color |
|
| Personal Details |
| Format |
DVD |
| Seen It |
Yes |
| Index |
177 |
| Collection Status |
In Collection |
|
| Product Details |
| Edition |
Special Edition |
| Region |
 Region 1 |
| Screen Ratio |
 Theatrical Widescreen (2.35:1) |
| Layers |
Single Side, Dual Layer |
| UPC (Barcode) |
085391504122 |
| Release Date |
12/16/1997 |
| Subtitles |
English; French; Spanish; English (Closed Captioned) |
| Packaging |
Snap Case |
| Audio Tracks |
 Dolby Digital 5.1 [English]
Dolby Digital Surround [French] |
| Nr of Disks/Tapes |
1 |
|
|
Extra Features
|
| Commentary Making Of... Movie Trailer Production Notes Scene Access Computer Animation Concepts, Special Effects Designs |
| Links |
|
|
