Review of Arrival (2016) by Grant W — 28 Feb 2017

The concept for this movie is quite original and I am very thankful to Hollywood for finally trying something new. Although it may not seem new on the face of it because of movies like contact this one is different in that it actually shows a realistic process of us trying to communicate with aliens.

Instead of the aliens just somehow magically knowing English we actually have to translate their language in a neat and creative way. This movie is not perfect though as there are some cliche tropes that are in first contact movies such as trying to get humanity to cooperate and not kill each other.

It is offset though by the humans actually resisting that though and acting as humans would do if this were a real situation. Given the run time I understand that there would have to be some limitations on showing the actual translation process so the montage of them getting past all the middle area is fine although I would have preferred to see more of this as the figuring out how to talk to the aliens is the main thing that sets this movie apart from all the others.

In addition I thought the ending could have been done better. I didn't really like the whole time thing they decided to throw in and I would have much preferred that they had just left that out entirely as it didn't really add much to the film in my opinion and it took away from what I thought made the movie good.

Overall though I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie and hope that they make more movies like this.