Well made, but...

Rating: 7/10 (19 January 2017)

Arrival is centered around a very interesting concept. How would you communicate with an alien species? How can a scientist approach this contact effort when faced with the impatience and the dictation of topics by the politicians and the general public? The film deals with the issue patiently and semi-scientifically, albeit in rather naive fashion (Amy Adams is the second linguist working on the project, and no one so far had thought of trying drawing/writing? Com' on). The side story with the daughter looks like the most overused cliché in cinema (you can guess "dead kid trauma" from the first scene) but turns out to have a bit of a twist which makes it clever. The aliens themselves are interestingly Cthulhoid (just in appearance!), the other countries' attitude towards the aliens does not really drift towards wrong- cause- they're-not-Muricans territory, and all in all the film has no major weaknesses - except for the main plot resolution, which is that the aliens' gift is their language. Which could be a good idea, if understanding their language didn't provide a way to...see the future. Yep. Apparently with amazing accuracy over incredible time periods. How is this a thing? I don't know. But science fiction films which try to focus on matters that regard actual science and more or less realistic issues should probably avoid this sort of interstellar-y mumbo jumbo.