Radio astronomer Ellie Arroway stumbles upon a discovery that will change the entire human race - a clearly artificial signal originating from near the star Vega. While Ellie feels this is an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the universe, others aren't so quick to accept that the message is benign. As presidential advisors debate the nature and content of the undecipherable message, Ellie receives a major hint from eccentric electronics magnate S.R. Hadden which reveals the communication to be a set of blueprints to build a machine that will transport its single occupant into the unknown and, presumably, to meet the machine's alien designers. As construction on the transport begins, scientists and others jockey for the dangerous privelege of being the first human being to venture into the stars. Ellie is also vying for the job, but political players and even someone very close to her are actively trying to prevent her from going.

Contact is the most intelligent science fiction film to hit celluloid since 2001. And it almost goes without saying that, if Arthur C. Clarke didn't write it, Carl Sagan had to. I've been impressed, ever since I raptly watched Cosmos on PBS at the tender age of nine and ten years old, with Sagan's ability to look at space from a societal standpoint, examining the effects that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would have on politics, religion, and the media - and vice versa. Contact barely even shows us the alien life forms in question, and in the end, it doesn't even need to. Contact isn't about them. It's about us, and the kind of political, spiritual and occasionally petty hopes and fears through which we would filter our perceptions of the potential discovery of alien life.

Jodie Foster conveys Ellie's intelligence, self-assurance, and concern smashingly throughout the movie, always keeping Contact grounded as a story about people, their foibles and their feelings instead of the effect-laden blockbuster-wanna-be into which it could have mutated. Tom Skerritt does his usual good job, this time in the role of a politically manipulative Washington science advisor who has designs on being the first human being to make contact with the aliens. Also, since any story about the discovery of alien life would almost necessarily have to deal with the crazies coming out of the woodwork, the nut cases are represented here by Jake Busey in an ultra-creepy series of cameos that culminate in the destruction of the first Machine constructed to transport the chosen human beyond the solar system.

For all of these wonderful things about Contact, there are a couple of flaws that I was never totally comfortable with. Please bear in mind that I haven't read the novel, and have no idea if these problems are endemic to the movie alone, or where perhaps literary elements that had to be vastly simplified to portray on film. My first problem was the character of Hadden, played in a positively creepy way by John Hurt. Hadden popped up, almost a literal deus ex machina, and towed the plot forward by not one, but two huge quantum leaps, first by handing Ellie the solution to the message, and then by revealing that a second Machine had been built in Japan. Both of these revelations could have been handled much more credibly without the Hadden character's "rabbit out of the hat" tricks - and if Ellie herself had figured out the alien language primer, and if the government, perhaps in the form of Tucker Smallwood's character, had quietly told Ellie of the existence of the duplicate Machine of its own accord, both of these parties would have come across as much more competent, and the plot would not have suffered. Between the way he intruded on the story and John Hurt's mondo bizzaro performance, Hadden was a major distraction in this film.

The second problem I had was with the alien contact sequence itself. Full of gorgeous and surreal effects, it shows Ellie meeting an alien in the form of her father, a form chosen to make it easier to communicate with her and gain her trust. Commander Sisko was probably about half a mile down the same beach meeting the Prophets. This is such an old device that could've been given a much more original twist, even if it made the scene a little more surreal and unsettling. But the "aliens taking on the form of a loved one to communicate with us" retread really diminished the impact of this extremely vital expositionary scene for me.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that President Clinton was a little less than overjoyed to be starring in this movie without being consulted about his "role," despite the fact that the Clinton seen in various news clips was very neutral - almost a requirement, given the source material. There is no official word on whether Ken Starr has subpoenaed the aliens to determine if they, or the President himself, fathered Jodie Foster's mystery child after the movie.

But seriously, Contact is, for me, the definitive serious science fiction film of the 1990s, a rare, astutely-written story that finds the sense of adventure and even romance in hard science.

• screenplay by James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg
• based on the story by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
• directed by Robert Zemeckis
• music by Alan Silvestri
• Cast: Jodie Foster (Ellie Arroway), Matthew McConaughey (Palmer Joss), Tom Skerritt (David Drumlin), James Woods (Michael Kitz), Angela Bassett (Rachel Constantine), Rob Lowe (Richard Rank), Jake Busey (Joseph), Jena Malone (young Ellie), David Morse (Ted Arroway), Geoffrey Blake (Fisher), William Fichtner (Kent), Sami Chester (Vernon), Timothy McNeil (Davio), Laura Elena Surillo (Cantina woman), Henry Strozier (Minister), Michael Chaban (Hadden Suit), Maximilliam Martini (Willie), Thomas Garner (Ian Broderick), Conroy Chino (KOB-TV reporter), Dan Gifford (Jeremy Roth), Vance Valencia (Sentator Valencia), Behrooz Afrakhan (Middle Eastern anchor), Saemi Nakamura (Japanese anchor), Maria Celeste Arraras (Latina anchor), Ian Whitcomb (British anchor), Michael Albala (Decryption hacker), Ned Netterville (Decryption expert), Leo Lee (Major Domo), John Hurt (S.R. Hadden), William Jordan (Chairman of Joint Chiefs), David St. James (Joint Chief), Haynes Brooke (Drumlin aide), Steven Ford (Major Russell), Alex Zemeckis (Major Russell's son), Janie Peterson (Major Russell's daughter), Phillip Bergeron (French committee member), Jennifer Balgobin (Dr. Patel), Anthony Fife Hamilton (British committee member), Rebecca T. Beucler (NASA public relations), Marc Macaulay (NASA technician), Pamela Wilsey (voice of NASA), Tucker Smallwood (Mission Director), Jeff Johnson (Mechanical), Yuji Okumoto (Electrical), Gerry Griffin (Dynamics), Brian Alston (Communications), Rob Elk (Pad leader), Mark Thomason (Security), Jose Rey (Controller #8), Todd Patrick Breaugh (New VLA technician), Alex Veadov (Russian cosmonaut), Alice Kushida (Scientist), Robin Gammell (Project official), Richardson Morse (Mission doctor), Seiji Okamura (Japanese ensign), Mak Takano (Japanese tech #1), Tom Tanaka (Japanese tech #2), Catherine Dao (Life support), Kristoffer Ryan Winters (Dynamics #2), Valorie Armstrong (Woman Senator), Jim Hild (Reporter #5), Bill Thomas (Reporter #6), Diego Montoya (School boy)
• Appearing as themselves: Larry King, Donna J. Kelley, Leon Harris, Claire Shipman, Tabitha Soren, Geraldo Rivera, Jay Leno, Natalie Allen, Robert D. Novak, Geraldine A. Gerraro, Ann Druyan, Kathleen Kennedy, Jill Dougherty, John Holliman, Bobbie Battista, Dee Dee Myers, Bryant Gumbel, Linden Soles, Bernard Shaw, President Bill Clinton