Nice Original Alien Invasion Film

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2020)

Arrival is basically a combination of Contact and Signs. It has the atmosphere and feel of Signs and the story of Contact. Though, I think it ends up being better than both those films. This is mainly due to the ending. Both Contact and Signs started out really interesting and engaging, but then started to lose it by the third act, and then the ending ruins it. With Signs the ending was just lame; with Contact the ending was both lame and confusing. With the amount of build-up this film gives us in the first and second acts the ending could have been a complete letdown just like those films were. Thankfully, this film does not drop the ball on the ending, which makes Arrival a cut above the rest. Despite that I would not call Arrival a phenomenon like most praise as. It's definitely a good movie, but I was not blown away by it.
Like I said earlier, the story is very similar to contact where humanity finally has contact with alien visitors and the main character Louise, played by Amy Adams, is trying to find a way to decipher their language and communicate back to them. The differences that, unlike Contact where the characters are deciphering a message and we never actually see the aliens, here the extraterrestrials actually come to Earth and the humans communicate with them directly, which makes the film more visually interesting.
The film also has a very gloomy atmosphere to it, very much like Signs or a Christopher Nolan film. If I did not know the director and people said Nolan directed this movie I would believe it, especially with the ending, which is something he would concoct.
The movie looks great in spite of the gloomy atmosphere. The effects team did an amazing job with the visuals. The score, while not the most memorable, also did its job at setting the mood of the scene.
The main thing about this film that prevents it from being a masterpiece for me is the characters. Amy Adams is fine but the rest of the cast I thought was lacking. The one thing Signs does better than this film and Contact, in my opinion, is the characters. I was invested in Mel Gibson and his family more than the cast in Arrival and Contact. You got good actors like Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker, but their characters were rather bland. Jeremy Renner's character felt rather pointless in the film until the very end when his role becomes clear. Even so, the film does not make him a compelling character and his chemistry with Amy Adams felt a little forced.
Plus, while you understand their importance by the end, there are many scenes that drag and drag down the pacing a little. Also, while the ending is good, there are a few scenes that feel odd or didn't really make sense with what the ending was going for, which I won't reveal to avoid spoilers. That's more of a nitpick, but it bugs me.
Overall, if you enjoyed Signs and/or Contact, or even aspects of those films you'll like Arrival. If you like Interstellar, Inception, or just about anything directed by Christopher Nolan you'll enjoy Arrival. I'd say it's definitely one of, if not the best alien invasion film to come out in a long time. I didn't think it was spectacular like most did, but it's definitely solid.