[This review is brought to you by Konigstiger666 of the NicDroid Community! facebook.com/groups/NicDroidCommunity]
Arrival is a Science Fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Prisoners, etc) based on a short story novella "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. It stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker. Arrival deals with strange looking, monolithic alien ships arriving on earth and humanity doesn’t why they are here. Forest Whitaker, a colonel in the US army, recruits Amy Adams who is a linguist to help the US government in interpreting the alien language and is supported by a theoretical physicist played by Jeremy Renner. Together they must decipher what this aliens are talking about before the rest of the world start shooting at it and in the process shoot their own kind. As the story progresses we see the life of Amy Adams in a series of flashbacks before the aliens arrived to give us insights as to what she has been through.
Arrival is a slow-burn Sci-fi movie that gives time for the
audience to really think of what is happening before them but at the same time
sipping through the great cinematography of Denis Villeneuve. It’s music too is
very visceral giving of an eerie, curious, and thrilling moments in the scenes.
But the best part of Arrival is that it really makes you think of the moment. I
love movies that make you think and doesn’t treat you as another dumb person
who wouldn’t understand. Yet, the movie gives out everything for the audience
to really understand every moment from start to finish. By the end of the movie
you will feel satisfied in understanding what the movie is telling but at the
same time still having questions going inside your head that would make anyone
curious to read up more on such subject matter. None of this would be possible
also if it were not for great performances of all the cast members that gave a very
satisfying acting, especially Amy Adams and her character that has a very
non-linear character development. But nothing is more so poignant than Villeneuve’s
film making as how we percieve and understand what he trying to convey. A sense
of connection and sense of understanding or perspective between each character
and their moments.
I would say the movie feels like a combination of Signs (2002), Contact (1997), with a dash of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). It poses a question to audiences watching… “are we the aliens to our own planet amongst our own kind?” The movie does great in showing how a realistic approach would happen if Extraterrestrial Ships (non-hostile) would suddenly appear in our skies and what our governments will be doing. Ultimately, the movie is not only showing how we understand ourselves but also how we understand each other. It tells us that in facing our future may it be uncertain or determined, we should push on ahead and facing it head on with our heads up even if we are very certain of its inevitability.
Arrival is one the most satisfying and curiously tingling movies I’ve watched recently. It’s like Inception Lite without the need of continuous heart thumping. It’s smart and thought provoking from start to end and beyond. And I say you should give it a watch. Denis Villeneuve is set to direct the new Blade Runner movie, a sci-fi action movie and he too directed Sicario, one of his best works I’ve seen in my opinion. I can safely say that I‘am very optimistic for that movie.
SPOILER TALK:
(Spoilers beyond this point. You have been warned)
So the aliens gave us this gift for being able to communicate in circle forms because it is interpreted in an infinite loop that will make us communicate and understand things beyond our current capacity to a point that we all will be able to see our future. Not to mention, that we will be able to understand each other without the need to talk or converse with another person. We would be like a collective hive mind that would be thinking and understanding alike and be able to process a lot of things so fast that we all will become a huge biological computer. Though at the cost of losing our free will because everything can be determined now. Though in the book this is how it is presented but in the movie, they presented it in a way that we still have free will and that our future can still be changed to a degree and not at all very deterministic. Though what is curious, the aliens gave us this huge unparalleled understanding and communication because they would need our help after 3000 years in the future. Now what would an all-knowing, omniscient advance alien race be needing from us that they cannot do after 3 millennia? By that time, we could be as advance as them. Let’s all start conversing inky circles and thinking of our possible future.
But what I really love about this film is of Villeneuv’s masterful direction. Not only was he able to tell a compelling linear story but also let us understand a different perspective into the life of Amy Adam’s character. In a sense that, it’s a time traveling story but done in very simple yet easily understood way. No need for overly complicated explanations just details for audiences to know and understand how this world operates. Not only does draw upon the story itself but also a statement in a global perspective when it comes to language and nationality itself. You can’t help but be able to get a lot of insightful meaning to this movie and in a sense it’s a very uplifting experience to watch it.
[Nico's note: If you like more of his reviews, make sure to Share and follow him on Twitter - @konigstiger666 and at Facebook.]
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