Arrival Review
by ElJefe__ and Captain Awesome!!!
Captain Awesome’s Review
So…Arrival, certainly took its time getting there!!!
This movie started extremely slow. I mean super slow. I mean like, slower than a snail. I slept off three times (in its support I did have a hectic two days, no sleep at night and a six hour road trip, so maybe I was just tired). It only really started picking up steam at about the 40-minute mark and even then, it just built up and maintained an average pace. The only consolation is that it is not a long movie.
This is an extremely serious and complicated movie (I had to watch it twice) which only reveals itself right at the end. There are quite a bit of “flash backs”, some unnecessary and some necessary to understanding what unfolds.
Despite it not being long, there are a number of scenes you would love to skip, but I advise you to grit your teeth and watch them, otherwise you may miss something pertinent, actually anything before the 40-minute mark can be skipped. In addition, you can skip the PSA about the aliens, which was literally a 5–10 minute segment about all you need to know about the aliens. You could probably also skip anything that has to do with the aliens and their “new” language, her making sense of the alien “speech” (if you can call it that…you cannot call it that) and all communication with the aliens, you will never understand it, because only she understands it. This is proven when they finally decide to give us subtitles for the aliens. Everything else pay close attention to, it’s small, but is the crux of the film.
While it has three identifiable actors in “lead” roles, Amy Adams is the lead and everyone else is supporting. The performances are not spectacular, but are adequate. The directing also does not stand out as fantastic.
The cinematography, locations and special effects were excellent and it surely should be a close contender for those awards.
The story also carries a fantastic message that we as humans should emulate.
CONCLUSION: I have always been a big lover of science fiction and to be honest this is a great story, just poorly adapted into film. There was a lot that could have been done in order to make it more exciting, but it genuinely felt like reading a book, which we would have if we wanted to. Definitely not my choice for Best Picture.
RATING: 5/10
Que’s Review
While the sci-fi geek in me liked “Interstellar”, I honestly never quite got immersed in it. On many levels, I wasn’t sure what they hoped to achieve. Now, after seeing “Arrival” …I finally know.
“Arrival” is the science-fiction movie you’re not used to. It’s one of those rare feats of cinema that leaves you feeling smarter simply because you watched it and (for the most part) understood it.
You won’t whoop for joy, you won’t be blown away by the mad action scenes, it isn’t sensual and you won’t cry happy tears. What you will do is sit very still, hands gripping the sides of your armchair hard, while you watch this thought-provoking It keeps making you think that it’s going to go down the usual path of laser guns and stealth bombers flying into the stratosphere to ram into alien spaceships. But it doesn’t.
Amy Adams plays Dr. Louise Banks, a world-class linguist (Argh!!…Must…not make any…jokes using the words “cunning linguist”!) who did the Army a favor a while back and now they need her help again. She is recruited alongside a physicist named Ian Donelly who is played by Jeremy Renner (you probably know him better as Hawkeye). So, 12 huge spacecraft have up and landed in scattered locations across the globe. No one knows why they’re here, what they want and they aren’t doing anything. So their mission is to assist the United States learn the aliens’ language, and ask them why they’re here.
This movie has a truly good cast with Forrest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbag (better known as Arnold Rothstein from Boardwalk Empire) play the Military brass coordinating the American part of this debacle but it is never in doubt that this is entirely Amy Adams’s movie from start to finish. She gives a truly mesmerizing performance. She flows seamlessly between confused, insightful, open, loving, analytical and brave. This might be the one that finally cements her place in the pantheon of the greats.
I’m struggling not to drop any spoilers here but I am bursting to! So I’ll just run through this quickly.
The scenes inside the alien ship are eerie and awesome. They almost all take place in a large chamber facing an enormous illuminated window through which they see the aliens or “heptapods” as they’re called (google it). The room takes on an entirely new life as the exchanges consist of displays of light, dark, sound and you’ll swear…touch. The team enters the craft through what is basically a shaft. Pretty basic. That is until gravity gets switched off and they are flipped 90 degrees and voila! What was a shaft is now a corridor!! When Jeremy Renner’s character yelled “Holy Fuck!”, I think I responded with my own quiet yell of “I know right???”
At the end of the corridor they meet two “heptapods” — which are essentially giant, squid-like aliens floating on the other side of the window and inexplicably name them “Abbott” and “Costello”. After a few stabs in the dark, they begin to communicate in what has to be the one of the most interesting ways I have ever seen. It makes all those “telepathic” aliens seem lazy.
Don’t forget that there are 11 more of these ships scattered across the globe. Some of them in places like: Shanghai, Siberia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, China and Russia.
The arrival of these aliens has enveloped America in a sense of deep dread not seen since Trump was announced the winner of the Presidential Elections. What would be the fallout if say China or Russia or the Janjaweed in Sudan got to learn the alien’s secrets first and used same against the rest of the world? What if Nigeria leads ECOMOG forces to shoot down the one in Sierra Leone? What someone otherwise pisses the aliens off and they retaliate by trying to wipe us out? These questions and more have made the world begin a downward spiral — with looting and violence breaking out on the streets, people are setting themselves on fire, prophets of doom are prophesying impending doom, people are on TV and radio demanding that their governments just blow the aliens to smithereens, basically a buffet of worldwide panic and hysteria.
Making everything even more complicated is the fact that while every country with a spaceship is interacting with their own aliens, they aren’t generally willing to share their findings. Things get worse as world leaders refuse to collaborate with their rivals or enemies, choosing to use the arrival of the aliens to leverage their way to better positions instead.
This is about the point where you realize that all of this, essentially only really background noise to Dr. Banks’s story.
Ms. Adams somehow manages to convert a delicate soft quietness into a heroic quality; soft spoken, deliberate and calm, she forces you to pay attention keeping her voice low, modulated, and using stillness to draw you near. Constantly reminding you that while this is a sci-fi movie in which nothing less than the fate of the world is in contention, it is truly a very personal, intimate tale told from the perspective of Amy Adams’s Dr. Banks and the way in which her past, present and future are somehow connected to the aliens and her understanding of their language is ultimately connected to the future of the rest of the human race.
Denis Villeneuve has given us a science fiction movie that is not ashamed to be smart and be all scien-cy. That is really refreshing. I mean they’re out there discussing linguistic relativity as easily as most of you discuss Big Brother Nigeria.
The one major failing this movie has — as far as I’m concerned is that it kinda expects us to ignore how they don’t bother to explain to us exactly how Amy Adams’ character actually breaks the code. The process in itself seems…largely unexplained.
The big reveal at the end of the film is huge and deeply profound and right there and then, the movie transcends its humble beginnings as a good story and becomes a message for all humanity. A message of hope and one that tells us we can be more than we are without pretending to know exactly how.
For me? This one has won the Oscar already and is the film of the year.
RATING: 8.5/10
