Creates a sense of dread

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2016)

This movie creates a building sense of dread, which is interesting because there are no typical space battles, or on-screen violence. There is some off-screen violence, but that's hinted at, rather than actually shown. There are some fantastical technological wonders on the alien ships, like their artificial gravity, and the aliens' smoke-based writing system. The aliens in the movie, called the Heptapods, were created based on biological influences on Earth, they look familiar and alien at the same time. They look kind of like octopuses or even the human hand.
In some ways, this movie is familiar, it's similar to Close Encounters of Third Kind, or Childhood's End. It's even slightly similar to Independence Day, but several levels smarter. Another interesting feature of this movie is that it was told non-linearly, which we don't find out about till the end, that a lot of the stuff that we saw happening actually didn't happen till the future.
Overall a very intelligent movie, but if you're going in to see a typical space shoot-em-up, this isn't the movie for you. Also very interesting that they built up the entire mystery of the aliens within just a two-hour movie, the pacing was just right, you were never bored. These days intelligent thought-provoking shows are usually found on HBO or Netflix TV mini-series, rather than in movies.