Waving tentacles and swirling mist

Rating: 5/10 (11 November 2016)

How do you like your sci-fi - hard and shiny or soft and gooey? Arrival is definitely down towards the soft and gooey end, I perceive while making out waving tentacles amid swirling mist. Unfortunately I am a hard and shiny fan and want to get some rational explanation for events depicted, so I am doomed for disappointment with this film. Yet criticism of the film can be based on more than taste, as any originality is distinctly limited. There is much in this film that is annoyingly formulaic. We've been here so many times before: the impatient, trigger-fingering military making things hard for the scientists, naughty old China and Russia making things worse, and the aliens taking offence at humanity's aggression. The first part of the film rolls along OK, but its a gift isn't it, the suspense of going into the alien spacecraft and making first contact with other life forms? After that things go steadily downhill, with the progress with deciphering the writing not really taking the audience along with it, and the hackneyed aspects of the story gathering strength. And it's all so S-L-O-W I had to fight an impulse to walk out.There is so much padding, mainly dwelling on Amy Adams' tip-tilted nose and emotional blue eyes. Whoever the aliens were, they clearly had not done any research on human psychology before coming here. Perhaps there are aliens out there who have done their research and that's why they don't come? Works for me! Regarding a rating for the film I'd say 4/10 as an experience for me personally, but in admitting that it is competent in many respects (eg acting and cinematography) and will appeal to a taste different to mine, I'm increasing it to 5/10.