A very creative idea about the first-contact scenario, with an intelligent plot and Oscar-worthy performances.

Rating: 8/10 (9 December 2016)

Minor Spoilers!
Arrival is a film about the first contact with aliens, which is a very often used topic in the science fiction genre. So the question is: Is "Arrival" able to deliver something different and do I recommend the film? I will tell you below.
What "Arrival" does different is the whole plot, there's no "They've come to kill us!" or "We have to destroy them", I think this is the first film about this topic without villainous aliens. In fact, it shows what I think would happen: Humanity attacking first.
The plot never felt to strange and did not leave the feeling of a rush or unexplained moments, except for one point I mentioned below, it has a nice pacing and flow through the film. The only two things which bothered me were: 1) There weren't any politicians shown, just the military, I don't believe that not a single president is interested in the matter. 2) The translating process started off nicely, but it then felt a bit rushed with not enough explanation.
This is no film for everybody and if you expect a blockbuster like explosion-orgy you are wrong here. But for everybody else who likes slow crafted, intelligent, different films which want to point something out and support a non-destructible way, this is a film for you.
The performances overall were excellent, Amy Adams manages to deliver the situation of the linguist in a very emotional, but believable way, it felt very natural and nothing over the top. Jeremy Renner was a very charismatic scientist, although he has not enough on-screen time in my opinion and you never know why he really is in the team except for some plot-details.
For me "Arrival" is one of the best films, if not the best, of 2016, there's just so much done right here and I'm really looking forward to Denis Villeneuve's future work, hopefully it will be as good as this!
And I'm not a native speaker, so I apologize for any spelling mistakes!