Review of Arrival (2016) by Jeff C — 23 Jun 2017

Two movies for the price of one. The first, a fine meditative sci-fi with Amy Adams as a gloomy linguistic genius called upon to communicate with a newly arrived alien species floating in 12 enormous concrete dill pickles around the globe. The story is at least mind-expanding if not mind-blowing. Adams slowly grasps that their language and their experience of time is non-linear (nicely displayed by having their sentences expressed as circles with weird little fractals spinning off in every direction) and then saves the world even as she deals with her own tragedies. Chick-flicky but very nice work.

The other movie has lines like "Montana is in lockdown", and "China has called a press conference", calling to mind those 1950s giant monster movies where the guy in the white lab coat is always saying "get me the Army" or some such. And it has predictable gun-nut reactionary military characters including a captain in charge of the most delicate mission in world history who might as well have "paranoid psycho" tattooed on his forehead. Sloppy, lazy, stupid scripting. We need another screenwriters' strike so these guys can go back to waiting tables or whatever and get some fresh blood.

Binge buddy Cindy liked it more than me.