Review of Arrival (2016) by Dewey L — 19 May 2017

I love the fact that this is about first contact with an extra-terrestrial live form minus the repetitive Hollywood action frag fest when everything blows up as if it was Michael Bay-ized stashed together with a bunch of product placement (*cough* TF4 *cough*).

Instead, it concentrates more on a more grounded sci-fi concept of communications as two different civilizations are trying to understand each other. Some people may dislike it to the core for the lack of action. And yet, they don't realize that 'Arrival' focuses on the concept of time as a sort 'loop' rather than the normal linear perception (being the default order of Past-Present-Future) Furthermore, what was considered the highlight of the show was that the flow of the story is almost representational to the alien glyph, in such a way that 'the ending of the turns out to be its beginning', like a sentence arranged in.

A circular pattern without a full stop.

Given its strength, however, the movie is not without some of its weaknesses. >>> SPOILER ALERT <<< It still left me out a lot of questions which sometimes does not make any sense. For example:

_How does Louise knows about General Chang's wife's last dying words? Why did she called him in the first place? If she can convince him to stand down his force, how did she actually do it?

_Why did the aliens took only Louise up to their ship?

_What makes them depart earth altogether at the end?

_The question of 'What was your purpose here?' still being left unanswered. Almost feel like a cliffhanger.

Other than its flaws, 'Arrival' is no doubt one of the best sci-fi out there in 2016. If you enjoy a good film that keeps your grey juices pumping, then this is one of those recommendations. If you don't, perhaps you should spend some time watching the Screen Junkies reviews before making up your mind.