Amy Adams is sad the movie

Rating: 4/10 (22 November 2016)

This film was a painfully slow exercise in self indulgence. It had none of the bombastic stupidity of films like Independence day and it's even worse sequel, but equally failed to be even slightly engaging. Watching it I felt like an advertisement for globalisation, mixed with lithium.
While the acting was fine, it was in no way great, because it's hard to over or under act in dialogue this boring. The story was told through the perspective of the main protagonist which was a good choice, but was insufficient to overcome my lack of interest. It reminded me in certain ways like Apollo 13, in as much as it was trying to tell a first contact story in a way that is technically as realistic as we could imagine, given no one has met aliens yet. However this approach only goes so far, and my biggest issue with the film is the lack of pacing.
There is a subtle twist at the end which refers to numerous scenes throughout the film which if I was still interested, I would have found clever, but by that point I has ceased to care.
I can see why some people appreciated it, but cannot understand the waves of overwhelmingly high scores it has garnered thus far.