A bunch of octopussies travel all the way to Earth just to give us a riddle.

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2018)

Usually a bad movie is either boring or stupid. This flick manages to connect a bridge between the two, accomplishing what only a select few bad movies have done before. Congrats, Villeneuve. If I used to be 99% sure I'll never watch your awful Blade Runner "sequel", now I am 100% sure of it.
These "superior aliens" are so inept and disorganized that they didn't even have the basic common sense to first LEARN an Earth language - ANY language (Swahili if need be) - BEFORE landing with 12 egg-shaped hover-crafts on Earth, scaring the bejesus out of everyone. Surely these "superior" aliens (let's call them squiddies) are smart enough to realize that Earthlings are deeply divided, paranoid, dumb and easily frightened. No? Well, in that case the squiddies are daft too, and that means the whole movie falls apart because its fundamental premise of a superior alien race doesn't hold water.
Speaking of water, they look like octopus. OK, fine: better than skinny bug-eyed big-headed generic anal-probing Area 51 type of green lizards, but hardly original or menacing or interesting. And the squiddies fire black ink too: what is this, a comedy? Is the fact they're octopussies the reason why they got along so well with girl-power girl?
I commend the film for not making this yet another absurd U.S.-centric invasion flick in which only Americans make decisions, where EVERYTHING revolves around the White House. Admittedly, Americans save the day - again - but at least it's not JUST about the Americans. But the way the movie goes about making this a global invasion is just embarrassing; it's pedestrian, utterly unrealistic. In essence, the best minds in TWELVE (read: 12) countries are working on this mystery, and yet the ONLY person who makes any significant progress is a linguist professor at some rinky-dink U.S. college where 5 kids show up to class. And when she finally makes a large breakthrough, those same government hotshots who trusted her and hired her aren't that interested in what she's got to say. Really?
The film is trying to tell me that China and Russia are so trigger-happy that they can hardly wait to attack a species that is so advanced that humans couldn't even figure out how they communicate between their 12 ships. Humans couldn't even figure out what the ships were made of! Yet they wanted to nuke them. WITHOUT being attacked first. It's so idiotic, you need be a fan of "Armageddon" to believe any of this malarkey.
The film is somewhat "serious" science-wise - at least until the story turns all stephenkingsian on us by unloading a huge psychic turdcake under our collective noses. Suddenly Louise reads the future! Why? How? Why her? What about the Russian and Chinese counterparts? Was the Sudanese girl-power linguist expert not competent enough to learn this "time language"? Did the Pakistani girl-power linguist not try hard enough? Was she a lot less smart? Lazier? What?... Sure, whatever. It's Hollywood 2016 i.e. it has to be dumb.
Louise's sudden psychic powers are explained by her learning this "time language". Her theory that learning a language changes how you think was far-fetched enough as it is, but acceptable. They had to go a step further, however, and introduce this ludicrous premise that there is a language that makes you... see the future? I know this is sci-fi (well... soppy chick-flick sci-fi) but this is just too silly.
I also struggle with this laughable idea that aliens come here just to give us a puzzle to solve.
"We came here to help you, BUT you have to first solve an incredibly difficult puzzle. Failure to solve it could have disastrous consequences and actually ruin you more than help you, but we are willing to take that chance because we love playing around funny guessing games involving ink with inferior clowns such as yourself."
By the time the movie had already spent HALF-AN-HOUR on humans trying to communicate with squiddies, I was getting impatient, figuring "well, the film's gotta move on soon, can't be possibly ALL about this linguistic riddle nonsense". Oh yes, it can! The entire movie is about this puzzle-solving drivel and those boring meetings between the romantic couple and squiddies! Nothing else. In fact, there are 37 of these meetings and I'm just thankful that Villeneuve decided to show us "only" 6-7 of those. (Feels like 15-20, but that's just me.)
The "future flashbacks" concerning her daughter are so very boring, mushy and visually flat, I wanted to fast-forward them: they look like shampoo commercials. In fact, my finger was nervously circling the FF button during the entire movie. I felt like I'd spent an entire day watching this dreary nonsense.
Get this: Louise has a child with lover-boy DESPITE knowing her daughter will die in her teens!!! Kinda defeats the whole purpose of HAVING premonition, doesn't it? "Well, done, girl-power girl! You have obtained the power to see the future. Now feel free to not use it by not avoiding major mistakes such as giving birth to faulty kids". Un-be-lieveable. Some people actually find this TOUCHING, INSPIRING even. Say what? Obviously people who agree with her decision don't have children of their own.
I also have to mention how unconvincing and dumb the notion of a benevolent alien race is. Look, I like octopussies as much as the next person, but the idea that a superior alien race is this NICE to us for no real reason than because they have great etiquette and a perfect moral compass, is asinine. It is actually possible to make movies with goody aliens, but it's very difficult to make them convincing and intelligent.
The incessant MUMBLING of the entire cast doesn't help either. These thespians hadn't even learned to SPEAK, yet they'd been cast in a big-budget film about a linguistic expert trying to solve a language riddle. Kind of ironic.