Arrival

Arrival (2016)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Screenplay by Eric Heisserer

Based on the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang

Stars: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Mark O'Brien, Tzi Ma

I'm trying to catch up to the movies that I missed out on during my hiatus of watching movies. This is one of them. I heard nothing, but good things about it. It's Denis Villeneuve. I would expect an experience and it was. 

Louise Banks (Adams), a linguist professor from an unknown university is having a normal day until the Earth is visited by twelve spaceships positioned around the world. She is summoned by the military to make contact with help of theoretical physicist, Ian Donnelly (Renner) at one of the sights in Montana.

When you go into a Villeneuve film, you know you are going to get eye candy. The visuals, the sound, the cinematography are top notch. The action is a slow burn. I like a slow burn. It doesn't have to be us versus them mentality that other movies have done.

Amy Adams went through it in the movie. I was surprised that she was not nominated for an Oscar for this. She was the anchor. It hinged on her being perfectly in the moment. She was. Mind boggling.

The things that hindered this movie was the ending. I did not care for the ending. It felt like a cop out. You gonna go this route. When all is revealed, you felt like the ending is a slap in the face. You are on this journey and rug is pulled out from under you. Eye rolling moment. 

The other thing is Forest Whitaker who plays Colonel Weber. More importantly, his accent. His first scene, I thought that Weber was South African. Nope. Apparently, he was going for a Maine/New England accent. Some of the words that came out of his mouth were hard to hear. Who made that choice? It was the wrong one.

Rating: 8/10