Jodie Foster is an astonomer who picks up a signal that is actually the instructions on how to build a machine. The building of the machine elicits all sorts of reactions from people, some who fear it and some who embrace contact with aliens. This is a slow and disappointing film of the first contact with aliens which is surprising for a film from Robert Zemeckis, despite this there is a good performance from Jodie Foster.
The premise is that the contact is not aliens in a space ship but information transfer. There is also the interplay between the scientist Jodie Foster and the religious Matthew McConaughey. Zemeckis pitched the film as plausable piece of science fiction. It is significant in that it pitches first contact with aliens as communicatin rather than a spaceship or an invasion. The film is based on the novel by Carl Sagan.
3/5 
Jodie Foster
Matthew McConaughey
Tom Skerritt 
Jena Malone 
John Hurt 
David Morse
James Woods
Angela Bassett 