Oh where do I start...
So the movie stars Jodie Foster, an astromer researching intelligent life on other planets. Using satellite dishes, she searches for radio signals in space. Everyone thinks she's out of her melon, until she finally gets a signal back.
01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110110 01101001 01110010 01100111 01101001 01101110
Alright, that's not at all the signal she gets, hers was more of a THUMP THUMP THUMP, but if you can translate that binary code, you deserve what it says.
I was very excited to see that the co-star of the movie was Matthew Mcconaughey and that he was rocking a borderline mullet. I was not excited about the love story, unnecessarily intertwined throughout the plot. Come on, I'm a chick and even I was annoyed with it. Why do movies do that? And not only that, but the star of the movie is Jodie Foster. Witnessing Jodie Foster being intimate with another person really made me consider celibacy.
In her defense however, I learned through this movie that she does in fact possess the ability to look female.
After a brief screen appearance from Hitler, chaos ensues and the fanatics set up camp around the satellites. Enter creepy, albino, religious fanatic from Utah (because where else would he be from?):
Turns out, for being such a man of God, the guy's a real dick.
And now the task of dicphering the mathematical message that they receive from outer space. Luckily for them, Mr. Hadden saves the day. Despite Mr. Hadden's generosity in "Ellie"'s work, if I were her I would definitely look into a restraining order and possible stalking charges. Just sayin.
And another thing I didn't understand is if he's so smart, you would think he would know that the "Six Flags Guy" look is not flattering.
(I had planned to do a side by side of the two so you could see how much he really does look like him, but apparently the guy that decodes the message and saves the whole story isn't important enough to have a screen shot of him on google images. Guess you'll just have to watch the movie).
It all came together though, when I realized that the space travel machine that E.T. instructed them to make looked a lot like a carnival ride.
More flags, more fun!!
(I drew that picture myself)
At some point during the movie I wrote the Aurora blog and so I missed about ten minutes of plot, but let's be honest, I wouldn't have understood it anyway.
And then it happened. After a few scenes of science fiction genius... just as I was about to mark Contact in my top ten... it happened. An epic display of terrible plot twist. I will say that the movie did somewhat redeem itself as it went on, but I never did fully recover from my disappointment.
I have to say that even though I disapproved of the ending, I really liked this movie a lot. I like any movie that combines science and religion and defends alternative sciences. There is a great scene where Ellie is defending her research to a panel of snobby investors who call her work crazy and useless. She comes back at them that almost every major discovery in history was at one time thought a crazy idea. Although I am no expert in the field of paranormal studies, I have found myself defending the field many times to professors, scientists, even religious people, and pointing out to them that at one time everyone swore the Earth was flat.
Another thing I liked about the movie was their discussions of faith. Specifically, faith without proof. A quote that I liked was "Did you love your father? Prove it."
There were some undertones of cheese, but it was bearable. Ooh, but bad green screen alert for sure. It also took me the entire movie to realize that one of the main characters is blind. And the ending left me wondering..
Who's Carl?
I would have to give this movie three and a half stars. Three and a half stars connected by a wormhole of death and disfigurement.
