Review of Contact

Video

This film is more than just a blockbuster Hollywood special effects effort, although these are plentiful. The story was written by Carl Sagan (who sadly died before the movie was completed) based on his book, and is far more than the typical ‘alien’ movie, it being scientifically more accurate.

This DVD contains the 2:35 anamorphic widescreen version, and is split over a whopping 43 chapters. The video quality is sharp with high contrast and colour depth. The occasional screen flash was seen once or twice throughout the film, as has been reported as being common with Warner DVDs. Once the film paused strangely for a split second (and this was not the layer change). These glitches aside, the quality of picture is good.

Audio

The 5.1 soundtrack is rich and has some great Dolby Digital moments. The scenes with the ‘machine’ activated, bring some great surround sound as the giant rings rotate round at high speed – metal grinding on metal. Also when Jodie drops down in the sphere through the rotating rings of the transport machine, the subwoofer is very active!

Features

This is a great disc for extras – and is the same as the Region 1 release. You get no less than three separate full length commentaries – Jodie Foster, Robert Zemeckis and Steve Starkey, and Ken Ralston and Stephen Rosenbaum.

You get computer animation concepts, tests, special effects designs, production notes and several trailers. The menus are static.

Conclusion

I have great affection for this film, mainly as last year I visited the Very Large Array radio telescope installation in Socorro New Mexico, and hiked down the Canyon de Chelly where Jodie Foster is seen crouching at the edge at several points in the movie. Also the year before I toured round Cape Canaveral in Florida where much of the second half of the film was shot. So having visited many of the filming locations before I even saw the film, I was very interested in it when I finally saw it. Also I have always liked Jodie Foster.

As DVDs go, this is regarded as one of the better Region 2 releases. It is the same as the Region 1 version, but of course on the plus side you get PAL picture quality over the NTSC Region 1 version. The extras are very good – I love to get a commentary, and on this DVD you get three.