Laborious Mess

Rating: 4/10 (10 December 2016)

(spoilers) "Arrival", directed by Denis Villenueve is a one-trick pony Sci-fi movie that wears thin about midway through its long feeling runtime. Perhaps the story from Ted Chiang was better done, but here in the movie we are put through some linguistics philosophy and a quasi time loop dream sequence. It feels like smoke and mirrors because it is. The explanations are dream-like imagery, and the meaning or motivation is lost. There's of course clichéd string orchestra as usual blaring (at least better than singing). The revelation that Adams character saves humanity by phoning a Chinese general is anti- climatic, hand-waving and ludicrous. The supposed tension is set by big-bad China. Yes, it used to be the Soviet Union as the big bad villain country for filmmakers, and in "Arrival" its China. This is a shameless "I need a sufficient villain" to manufacture tension. Also poorly thrown is film-makers need to show news feeds as sort of validation of reality, as if media is the social hand that feeds. "Arrival" has an interesting setup and reveal of Alien Life forms, but the writing/script seems to be too smart for its own good. The last 1/3 of the movie is a complete mess. Sorry the child died, move on - blah. I've read it being compared to "Contact" and "Midnight Special", both of which are hands down better movies. Cannot recommend 4/10.