Departure (from the cinema)

Rating: 3/10 (22 July 2017)

I just watched the original "Alien" movie, which was made in 1979. Incredible. And then this botched remake of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". And then I had to take in the stellar reviews here on IMDb. Wow.
Where did it all go wrong? When was the collective decision made that movies are great just because they have an uplifting message? "Arrival" starts with an interesting premise, twelve spaceships suddenly appear all over the globe, and in the USA a linguist is dispatched to communicate with the aliens. And they always take along a canary bird for some reason. OK, that's great so far. I guess the big payoff is that the aliens look like octopi buuuuuuuuuut they have only seven legs and are caring-sharing-karma-believing hippies who want to help us out so that we will help them out in, like, three millenia. By talking in whalesong.
All over the world, the greatest minds are trying to establish some sort of understanding with the spacefreaks, but then Amy Adams, or the scientist she's playing, has the wonderful idea to write down the sentence "Hi, I'm Amy" on a piece of paper, and the aliens are like: Wow, we traveled over hundred of lightyears, and wanted to communicate with you in writing, but we wanted YOU to initiate it. And now you did! Let me throw some circles at you! And Amy's like: Oh finally, CIRCLES! Why, that's so much easier to decode than the whalesong you did before, let me draw some scientificy-looking vectors, and there! I've solved it! And by the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis I can now look into the future! And that totally explains all the weird flashbacks throughout the movie! But most of all: OMG, the protagonist is a woman scientist! I still have to see one convincing, let alone great movie, by Denis Villeneuve. The critics may love you, Denis. But they don't pay for their movie tickets.