Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (26 February 2017)

No payoff for all of the slowness.
*** Minor spoiler plot points following ***
I really liked Enemy, I loved Prisoners, and Sicario is a masterpiece but Denis Villeneuve's Arrival misses the mark.
The "twist" basically invalidates the main character's reason for having the personality that she has throughout the movie. Arrival also makes the mistake of making this big science fiction first contact movie too much about the personal problems of the main character instead of making it about the subject matter at hand. Because in the end, with all of the time that was was put into so many flashbacks, it doesn't tie strongly enough into the issue of the aliens arriving on earth. Now I understand that the film makers might think that it does. But to me it's just a long drawn out sidetrack that is detracting from more interesting things that the movie could be showing.
Now from a purely technical standpoint Arrival is first rate. It looks and sounds good, but Amy Adams character doesn't add up. Jeremy Renner's character is really the only spark of life and personality in the movie but he doesn't get much of a chance to do anything with it.
I had high hopes for Arrival but, nope.