Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (30 December 2016)

I really enjoy good sci-fi movies and look forward to them when they come out. I saw good reviews of Arrival and was anxious to see it when it came to the movie theaters. Although Arrival has some very good actors in it, Amy Adams (American Hustle), Jeremy Renner (The Immigrant), Forest Whittaker (The Last King of Scotland), the script is implausible and the action drags along at a snails pace.
I say the script is implausible for two reasons: (1) Linguists have had knowledge of the existence of Cretan Linear A for over a century, but no linguist to date had had any success in translating it (unlike Cretan Linear B). This demonstrates how difficult it is to decode a strange script, even if one form of it (Cretan Linear B) has been successfully tackled. That is why the deciphering of the squids' writing system in Arrival seems totally implausible. (2) Also, if the squids have the technology to create spaceships that can traverse quadrillions of miles of space and defy gravity when they land, they could certainly have created a device to translate their language into Earth languages and vice versa.
As I assume that Arrival isn't meant to be fantasy, both of these issues are serious plausibility gaps in the movie. The depiction of the squids languidly swishing back and forth in a large sealed vat of smoky liquid (or gas--I couldn't tell) looked amateurish. In addition, as I mentioned above, the movie moves along incredibly slowly. Except for the Amy Adams character, the rest were one-dimensional.
Conclusion: I get it. The squids bring all humans together as one. They're good guys and they want us all to get along and play nice together. And in 3000 years they'll call on us for help. Have a visit by aliens (good ones of course) and we'll all have peace on Earth. What a peachy ending. Boy, if only it were that simple.
Overrated. Mediocre at best. Too bad because it has some good actors in it. A better script and better special effects would have helped.
5 out of 10. Good try though.