Great philosophy, good sci-fi, atrocious drama

Rating: 7/10 (6 February 2017)

Some language professor named Louise is visited by some military guy after 12 alien spaceships arrive and hover a couple of yards above ground on different places around the world like Montana, Russia, China, Venezuela.
He presents her with some recording of the alien language and asks her what she makes of it. Of course she doesn't make anything of it. He leaves planning to visit some other professor. Eventually she's hired for the gig of deciphering the alien language together with with scientist Ian.
Up the spaceship they go toward something like a large window. On the other side is fog/mist. Eventually 2 aliens appear. Humans call them heptopods for their seven legs. After the aliens warm up to our team, they release some foggy black ink that turns into shapes. The humans conclude it's their actual language not the sounds they make. The shapes are mostly rings with various blots in different places and eventually the humans more or less figure out the what they mean.
At first the humans from the 12 countries are working together. But since all these countries are run by neocon nutjobs who are ready to wage war at any moment, things get more complicated. Info is leaked to the media about what happens during the encounters with the aliens.
At some point the aliens appear to write the word "weapon." That makes China go crazy and cooperation between the countries is stopped altogether. The US military too takes more aggressive steps. That's when our team goes rogue and give the aliens one more chance. The alien releases a bunch of these ink circles and Louise has to figure out what it means. All throughout the movie she's been having dreams/visions of her daughter and those will be key to figuring out what's going on.
Arrival starts and ends with some preposterous pompous music. Fortunately, throughout the movie we are spared that stuff. The movie looks rather ugly, a very misguided choice by the director. The spaceship is utterly unremarkable inside and out and everything is rather colorless. The aliens too aren't particularly interesting although more about their presence is revealed later on. Unfortunately, the movie centers on this lame and dull woman. Ian's contributions aren't clear. His job is to be the woman's sidekick, the best a male character can hope for in Hollywood these days. Even Forest Whitaker who is a compelling actor isn't allowed to do much.
Initially, Arrival is very exciting, up to the point where they meet the aliens. Our main characters aren't in charge, no one is, because what is going on is so much larger than any one person or group of persons. But eventually the excitement subsides as the woman's visions that don't make much sense to us yet, or aren't all that relevant after all, take precedence. Those visions for some reason are filmed in richer color and given a better look.
But it's the story here that shines. The symbol for "weapon" will turn out to have another meaning as well. And the movie makes clear how easy it is to start wars, for something as simple as an equivocation on a word. Time is also a main issue here as the aliens, unlike humans, aren't stuck in the arrow of time but have greater freedom in time. This freedom is granted to them by their language.
In the end we learn why the aliens arrive, what they say and mean, what Louise's visions are all about, and how what initially looked like catastrophe--the imminent military response by the world powers--was averted. It's meaningful and insightful stuff. However, I'm not thrilled by how it was presented in some overly-dramatic fashion. In some way the audience is also cheated because in the end the story wasn't told entirely linearly, but that was probably necessitated by the story itself. Still, I think it could have been directed/edited in a different, more interesting way. The story is smarter than most these days, but the tone of the movie is a bit arrogant. The movie thinks it's even smarter than it really is.
Arrival is strong movie with a rich intriguing story. It's enlightening but not entirely satisfying. I can't get rid of the feeling that a much better movie could have been made with this material.