This was an accidental consumption, an error at the hands of the DVD rental place, but I thought I’d watch it anyway before I stormed back to the shop in rage.
I’ve never read the book so I can’t say whether the film’s a fair representation of it or not, but suffice to say it’s put me off reading Carl Sagan for the rest of my life. Science and religion on an equal footing when it comes to searching for the truth? Er yeah, obviously.
It’s my own fault, really. I knew the minute I heard that awful, heart warming, Hollywood chord in the opening scene that this was not going to be my kind of film, but I persevered. And , to be fair, doing so has allowed me to add the sentence “Contact is a really rubbish film” to my repetoire of knowledgeable things. You do indeed learn something new everyday.
Nice graphics at times, but why bother when you can look at real photos from the Hubble telescope instead, and not have to put up with a preposterous love story sidling up to you like a 39 year old man with overly gelled hair and bad breath all the way through the film.
An atheist and “a man of faith” falling in love with each other? I don’t jolly well think so.
Seriously, don’t bother. Go and read about cicadas and prime numbers instead. That’s interesting, and far more expressive of the awe-imspiring complexity of the universe we live in than this bland, over-blown, wishy washy refusal to tread on anybody’s toes. If Ned Flanders ever got round to directing a film, I have a strong feeling it might resemble this one quite closely.
