So, here it is 2017 but I am still catching up on the movies I missed from 2016. While watching various "Best of 2016" movie lists on Youtube and talking with friends, many were saying that the movie THE ARRIVAL was a solid film all around. Marc Bernardin of Fatman On Batman gave the film really high marks and it was scoring insanely high on Rotten Tomatoes. Just recently The Arrival arrived at the nearby second run theater and I decided to give it a try.
One of the aspects I love about today's crop of films is the bountiful numbers of science fiction movies being produced. It's like the 1950's sci-fi/horror boom all over again except today tons of money and production value are poured into these films. Science Fiction has become the fodder for A-List blockbuster films instead of the humble B-List productions of yore. The Arrival is an example of the breadth of storytelling one can achieve through sci-fi. It's a merging of real life drama with larger than life science fiction.
I really enjoyed The Arrival.
THE PLOT
12 alien space crafts descend upon Earth in 12 seemingly random locations across the globe. All the countries in which these pods have landed assemble their own teams and attempt their own excursions to communicate with the aliens. A college linguist expert and a mathematician are called in to lead the American team. Meanwhile across the glode other countries are growing restless. The threat of these unknown beings is causing panic among much of the populace. A full scale war looms unless the American team can find some way of communicating with these strange heptapod beings and then communicate with each other.
WHAT I LIKED
Allegory. While production budgets and popular attitudes have changed for the better regarding science fiction and fantasy films of late one thing has always remained constant: science fiction, fantasy, and horror films have always been a great place for allegorical storytelling. The film is basically a study of human behavior with an emphasis on communication. After watching the movie I realized how much I take for granted regarding the simple act of communicating with the people in my life. The message seemed especially poignant given the toddler in my life whose learning how to speak and communicate altogether.
Well Rounded. Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, and everyone else in the film deliver stellar performances. The special effects are wonderful. The alien heptapod designs feel both fresh and reverential. And the story. The narrative of the film is very well done and tells a very good story. But what this film really comes down to is communication. Nowadays with the internet communication is so readily available (like this blog!) we can sometimes forget what it's like to actually speak to one another. We can be careless or hurtful without even knowing it. Misinterpretation happens so often resulting in opposite outcomes. Take away the ability to communicate and what are we left with? This is the kinda stuff this film asks and explores.
NITPICKS
There wasn't too much I didn't enjoy about this film. The presentation of the film at first presents some misleading information. As the film goes on and the Heptapod language is deciphered our characters learn to think and communicate in different ways. The film's delivery of the narrative, we discover, is occurring in these same different ways which plays heavily into the ending. Many have praised the ending of this film. While it is quite good it didn't have that awe-inspiring feeling on me. I personally gained more from the study of communication in this film than the overall experience. I'll probably never watch the movie again, but if I did I wouldn't mind it.
THE VERDICT
The Arrival is a wonderfully executed drama under the guise of a sci-fi flick. The narrative is told in an interesting way which all comes together at the end. The acting is good. The effects are good. This film is simply well done all around. It's like a Pixar film in that on the surface the movie is about aliens but in reality there's a deeper message for adults that may go over some viewers heads. While I liked it a lot I probably won't see it again simply because it's more of a drama than anything else. Dramas aren't my usual cup of tea. But I'm glad I saw this one.
Overall Ranking: 7 out of 10
Nude-O-Meter: 0 out of 10
(unless you count the heptapods as being naked then its a 5 out of 10. Lots of naked Heptapod bod on display)
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