Delayed Reaction: Contact

The Pitch: A more plausible alien contact movie than ID4, because, why not?

How I Came Into It: This is one of those movies I've technically seen before. In this case, it was super late at night and I didn't catch it from the beginning, so I wasn't sure how much I actually missed. It turns out, a half hour. Regardless, I love Zemeckis, especially 90's Zemeckis. I'm more hot and cold about 90's Jodie Foster (On one hand, Silence of the Lambs. On the other hand, Nell) and 90's Matthew McConaughey (McConaug-HEY).

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This is an enjoyably underwhelming movie. It's a big movie where nothing really happens...I need to find a way to talk about it that doesn't sound negative. There's a lot of archetypal interesting characters. Scientists, believers, skeptics, bureaucrats. It aims to be like what would really happen if something like this actually happened. And, the effects of Foster's space tour still look pretty good.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: It's shot like a blockbuster but isn't meant to be one. That tone gets a little confusing. A stupid small gripe that I have is that I'd rather they left out the part about Foster's tape recording 18 hours of static. Without it, the movie leaves it up to you to decide if it really happened. With it, all reasonable doubt is removed. I feel like that undercut the whole vibe of the movie up to that point.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend