ONE PARAGRAPH REVIEW: Arrival

Howdy ladies and gents, time for another one paragraph review and today I’ll be talking about Arrival. Now this is a film I’ve heard a great deal about from film festivals and considering that it’s the next big film from Denis Villeneuve, there was a lot of hype surrounding it. All I’ve seen is glowing reviews for this left, right and center, so is it good or not? Well read on and find out!

The plot can be summed up as the following: “A linguist is recruited by the military to assist in translating alien communications.” Arrival is an interesting film, it takes a very different approach to the alien invading earth format that we’ve seen in recent years and instead goes for a more methodical, psychological and dramatic style instead. What I appreciate about this plot was how well-thought out it was, it was incredibly smart, insightful, dramatic and had all of the key elements of mystery intrigue that comes with really good sci-fi films. Not only were the aliens handled incredibly well, but also the humans and their reaction to the invasion. The overall film has a great sense of realism and logic, and the tension and suspense is handled well throughout the film. It is just the third act when a major revelation gets revealed that changed my perspective on the film completely and it is not that it wasn’t impressive, it was really cool and inventive, however, it kind of took away from the realism of the film and came out of nowhere in a way. When it comes to the cast they were all really good, Amy Adams was really good as Dr. Louise Banks, this kind of role required a very strong performance and Adams gave it in spades, while Jeremy Renner was equally impressive as Ian Donnelly, and the both of them have really good chemistry together, Forest Whitaker was also good as Colonel Weber,  while Michael Stuhlbarg continues to impress me from role to role as Agent Halpern, and Tzi Ma (who I remember from a brief appearance in the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) was good as General Shang too. Visually the film looks really great with some awesome cinematography and visual effects, and the film score from Jóhann Jóhannsson is well-suited to the action on-screen with an eery, atmospheric and subtly disturbing vibe, but with some moments of beauty and drama too. In conclusion Arrival was a pretty fascinating experience in the cinema that I think a lot of fans of sci-fi will enjoy, the film’s not for everyone and the pacing will definitely be on the slow side for a lot of audiences, but if you can get over that then you’ll have a good time.

So have you seen Arrival and if so what do you think of it? Is it “best of the year” material or not? Be sure to leave your thoughts on the comments below and I’ll see ya on the next review, laters! 😀