tonyr14226

I liked the flick and thought it worked. I decided to watch it because it was set in 1981, and I thought it might be nostalgic. It was. The costuming and sets were excellent. It really does make you think you're back in that era. While I don't speak French, the dialogue as reflected in the subtitles was good, and for the most part I thought the acting was very good, as well. The plot was meandering and whimsical, but so too is the mind of an 11-year-old boy, and that's what I think this film was trying to accomplish. The flashbacks to Nazi-occupied Italy were amusing, especially considering that the boy imagining them wasn't born until 1970.

Without a doubt, "Making Contact" -- or "Joey" as it apparently is otherwise known, is one of the most horrendous, mind-numbing, plot less pieces of nonsense ever filmed. It is not even accidentally entertaining. The acting is deplorably bad, exceeded in banality only by both the dialogue and the script. Where it is not utterly nonsensical and moronic, the story line is wretched, clichéd, and predictable. The cast of nobodies and never-will-bes should be imprisoned for their performances. The ending is an unprecedented cinematic abortion so bad that it damaged the heads on my VCR. The disconnected vignettes that purport to convey a plot serve as unintended parodies of such contemporary films as "ET" (doctors and technicians specializing in paranormal activity treat stricken young boy in his own home, he dies, supernatural powers herald his restoration, he lives); "Poltergeist" (lots of toys and other stuff flying around for no apparent reason); "Ghostbusters" (supernatural forces use your own fears against you; clichéd fat kid sees enormous carnivorous cheeseburger); "Star Wars" (R2D2-style robot with fetching personality gratuitously accompanies boy everywhere); and "Goonies" (several pre-adolescents -- including scared fat kid in overalls yelling "Hey, wait for me!" -- survive multiple perils in a collapsing, underground structure). It appears that the forces behind the making of this abomination mistakenly believed that they had a sure-fire formula for a can't-miss money-maker. We are left to ponder their epic miscalculation. I feel dumber for having watched it.