Boring and inconsequential film that tries to look down on its viewers

Rating: 4/10 (28 November 2016)

I wish Arrival was half as good as critics around the world are projecting it to be. Hailing a movie as a masterpiece just because it is different is pretty much the worst thing that art connoisseurs can do.
Apparently, the critics are raving about the Sci-Fi film because it takes a departure from Hollywood style of filmmaking. But departure alone is not enough. A movie should first and foremost succeed in elucidating the subject at hand for the audiences to the last detail. Arrival, for example, talks about certain symbols that the aliens seem to use and the protagonist who is a language expert slowly learns them but the viewers are never afforded that luxury. Right from the onset film assumes that the viewers are incapable of understanding such intellectual stuff. I mean our two protagonists are supposed to be two of the most intelligent professionals on the planet earth. One is a world renowned language expert and the other is a theoretical physicist. What is the probability in the world that an average viewer would be able to match that intellect? Well, for your kind information, that same average viewer has paid for the ticket. Some of the most intellectual characters ever created, including Sherlock Holmes, never let things unexplained for the lesser mortals.
I don't claim to be as intelligent as Robert Langdon or Hannibal Lector, but I like to see myself as an intelligent film viewer and so I would like a filmmaker who tries to indulge me and not a filmmaker who doesn't think me capable enough to understand at least as much as his superintelligent characters. If Tarkovsky or Kubrick never thought lowly of their audiences, what makes Denis Villeneuve to look down upon the viewers? Besides, the film doesn't really offer anything that hasn't been done before in cinema.To make matters worse, it is boring and inconsequential.
The strongest aspect of Arrival is Amy Adams. But she has delivered much stronger and dynamic performances over the years. Hollywood loves to make movies about female characters who look nervous and fidgety to begin with but end up showing remarkable courage in the face of adversities. Can there be an easier way of wooing half the human race? Well, to tell the truth, the female audiences are not gullible and filmmakers cannot fool them. He had attempted something similar in Sicario and he has done it again in Arrival. Hope Denis Villeneuve would be more careful with the Blade Runner sequel.
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