A More Leisurely Scary Communication with Aliens

Rating: 9/10 (12 January 2019)

11 November 2016. Amy Adams stars in this psychological, space-time mystery. While not as compelling or engrossing as Interstellar (2014), Arrival has the same thrill of the new, unusual, and the unknown. Perhaps on the same level as the more claustrophobic Barry Levinson's Sphere (1998), Arrival brings with it a more personal, intimate backstory similar to what Manhunter (1986) accomplished with its parent-child interaction crime-thriller starring William Petersen of CSI. What makes this movie special is its expansion on the alien theme and how we communicate. There is the visual from Wavelength (1983), a sci-fi movie about alien beings and a couple's attempt to help them escape from a secret government station. There is the variation on a communication angle somewhat related to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Whether or not the recent election of Donald Trump as President of the United States might fundamentally alter the impact of the likely storyline of this movie in terms of this country's response to such an alien situation is hard to figure. Unlike the singular hardcore response found in Phantoms (1998), Arrival offers up a more convoluted response. Arrival presents experiences similar to the sci fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Epoch (2001) of which Arrival has many similarities. In some ways, Arrival has the same tone and unworldly presentation as the remake version with George Clooney in Solaris (2002) but with an even a more soft touch. In a fashion, Arrival is the reverse of Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) that instead of the aliens having come and gone and humanity going to them, in Arrival the Aliens appear and remained.