Not very scientific, and cold.

Rating: 2/10 (29 November 2017)

How come such advanced alien civilization did not understand human language? Humans, the not-advanced civilization succeeded in understanding heptapod language, where a human linguist started to communicate, write and teach their language to other humans; while the heptapods, the light-years travelers and thousand-years advanced civilization, even with the help of 12 ships each of which containing at least two alien astronauts, were struggling about how to communicate with humans.
So the main play is based on a keystone: Advanced species could not understand the language of the less advanced species, and a less advanced specie could understand the language of an advanced species.
"Language is the foundation of civilization. It is the glue that holds a people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict" - Arrival 2016.
But how come the "foundation of civilization" is used as a weapon? Deaf-mute people are still parts of the society, and civilization is an integration of social act basically. Thus it seems to me that there are serious mistakes in "Arrival" movie, it mixes the ideas of civilization, culture, language, technological achievements, and of intelligence; to reach a funny conclusion: learning an alien language can make people able to control time flow. So it misunderstands the ideas of physics as well.
More annoying thing in the story, is to indicate that there is nothing wrong in knowing the exact date at which we will lose the most loved ones. That is a very terrible idea to put in a movie, a very depressing and so cold idea to conclude with.