Review of Arrival (2016) by Thequietgamer — 26 Feb 2018

Have you ever discovered something that just captured your curiosity to the point where you wanted to learn everything about it? That's the effect Arrival had on me. Every new development filled me with a sense of childlike wonder and caused my interest in the film's otherworldly visitors to grow even deeper. Tensions understandably rise as twelve spacecrafts arrive across the globe and humanity races to find out why. It's far from an original set up for a sci-fi movie, but what sets apart this quest to discover extraterrestrial motives is the approach taken. You'll notice the familiar elements of human paranoia and governmental mistrust running in the background, but Arrival's main focus is on the establishment and discovery of communication. That is what makes all the difference.

The imaginative and complex method of conveyance crafted for this film is nothing less than brilliant. It really sells the outer space lifeforms as real, intelligent creatures. Of course that is also helped by how good the film looks (minus Amy Adams' CGI spaghetti hair). The film's core idea of deciphering a dialect and written language unlike anything we know seems like something that would be an insurmountable challenge, but it reminds us that this has been done before when humans discovered each other living on completely different sides of the planet. Arrival's intelligent handling and understanding of linguistics makes what could have been a boring process something that is fascinating to watch unfold. The big reveal is one heck of a revelation. It causes the final leg of the film to take an interesting turn. While it goes off in a different and kind of strange new direction, it speaks to something so human that it's hard to not appreciate it. This is of course bolstered by the incredible performance from Adams. She's got other talented people alongside her in the cast, but it's really up to her to carry the movie. Something she does so exquisitely that the lack of even a nomination for an Oscar is baffling. Arrival is such a breath of fresh air for the sci-fi genre. It shows off a level of intelligence and believability that feels all too rare, and it manages to do so with the old "are they friend or foe?" approach that's been done so many times before. Something that speaks highly of Denis Villeneuve's ability and shows that apparently there are ways to mine new depth from even among the most overused concepts. In closing, Arrival is absolutely captivating and it might just be the best sci-fi film I've ever seen.