Arrival
Director Denis Villeneuve who has had a great
run of success lately with films such as Incendies, Prisoner and Sicario, and
who in August 2017 will also be releasing the sequel to the 1982 cult science fiction
classic “Blade Runner” titled “Blade Runner 2049”, is now offering up one of my
personal favorite film genres in the form of science fiction with the new dramatic
story simply called “Arrival”.
Running 2 hours and set in current time the
film “Arrival” starts out immediately with the sudden mysterious arrival of 12 spacecraft
all touching down (more like hovering) across the globe. Headed by the elite expert
linguist Professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams), she also is brought in to work together
with renowned mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) and Army Colonel Weber
(Forest Whitaker) who collectively investigate why the “aliens” are here.
As time goes by without any overt threats from the
12 spacecraft mankind nonetheless anxiety levels are percolating hotter and
hotter with the innate fear of the unknown about the beings and as a result humanity
becomes more convinced with the passage of time that humans may actually be teetering
on the verge of a global war. Professor Banks and the team race against time to
find answers and above all to fully understand them with sometimes coming to risky
assumptions which could be taking a dangerous chance with their own lives as
well all of humanity too.
“Arrival” is less science fiction and more basic
premortal human drama; that being to always first feel fear to what we don’t
know and or don’t understand. And with
that as its core focus Director Villeneuve delivers for the first 1:30 minutes
some real authentic tension as you observe meaningful intellectual dissection of
a problem at work with the desire of trying to solve a huge problem which is “what
is the purpose of the visitors to our planet”.
What Arrival does brilliantly in my opinion is
tell this basic story with the appropriate degree of “spookiness” which you
would expect from an earth invasion film with an equal more prescient and perceptive
challenge of telling that same story by talking about this mysterious alien invasion
in a way that forces the viewer to always keep up without ever “dumbing it down”.
If you want to see what a smart and
introspective sci-fi film would wonder about as in how a first human contact
with an alien species might look like, this quiet but forceful film offers up a
solid tale of what could be possible.
Amy Adams felt star quality real every moment
on the screen as she made me and you as well feel the power of human intellect
and human learning as the first basic tool of our essence, which inevitable leads
to the next step in the evolution process which is to be able to communicate including
on those occasions with a stranger with a different language. I hope she gets
an Oscar nomination, but I always do with her.
“Arrival is not great, but it is damn solid and
while the last 25 minutes of the film does levels off a bit by moving to a more
conventional safe conclusion and message, I nevertheless was still highly
impressed with this film being one of the smarter efforts of 2016. But what was
buried in the overall purpose, direction and focus of this films plot was in
fact not so much an attempt to reveal some evil intentions on the alien’s arrivals
to earth as some mysterious outsiders. No, it was slightly more surreptitiously
implied but evident nonetheless through the films “Q & A’ process which is
when people ask smart questions and conclude smart answers that process itself is
in fact an internal examination of our own minds and thoughts as well. Particularly
so in all those many times we have asked from our own birth to adult hood both solemnly
to ourselves and directly to others the basic simple question “why”? And by asking
“why” and asking questions in general by doing so we get that much closer to a
more intricate and more thorough exploration of our own human selves and our
human purpose on this earth. Don’t you
agree?
4 Stars
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