Contact (1997)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Dr. Eleanor Arroway	Jodie Foster	½
Palmer Joss	Matthew McConaughey
Dr. David Drumlin	Tom Skerritt
Rachel Constantine	Angela Bassett
S. R. Hadden	John Hurt
Ted Arroway	David Morse
Richard Rank	Rob Lowe
Kent Clark	William Fichtner
Michael Kitz	James Woods	½
Fisher	Geoffrey Blake
Young Ellie	Jena Malone

Review

With its seemingly appealing combination of so-called pensive science-fiction (which may have felt like a welcome contrast to 1996's Independence Day) and philosophical meanderings, Contact had the outlines of a good movie – and was hailed by many critics as such. Still, in order to come to that conclusion, you must be willing to overlook the film's outrageously pretentious moral and ethical "discussion", which is hard to swallow, to put it lightly. This is a self-righteous message movie camouflaged as intelligent sci-fi, and despite some interesting ideas and qualities, director Zemeckis ultimately lets both himself, his actors and his viewers down.