Arrival movie review

I’ve been noticing the movie Arrival since last year when I first saw the trailer. It has the same components that I like for a sci-fi movie with aliens. An invasion, the presence of the military and the key characters/heroes which are unexpected like the scholarly types. I’ve been a fan of movies like these since Stargate and Independence Day.

 

Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

But what makes Arrival different is that there are also some surprising details. The story is about an unexpected arrival when 12 huge crafts suddenly appeared in different locations across the planet. Each sighting was situated in different countries. But the main focus of course is the one in U.S. since this is a Hollywood movie.

If you are aware of the stages of close encounter with UFOs, you will have trouble analyzing this. The Close Encounter of The First Kind is the sighting of the craft from the sky and can be seen from the ground. The Second Kind is when the craft touches ground. But the craft that was shown in the movie was only hovering above ground. So it is kind of crossed between the First and Second.

The key characters include an expert linguist played by Amy Adams which is tasked to find out if contact or communication can be possible with the extraterrestrial craft.  So in this case, the fate of the world rests upon her expertise.

I am impressed with how they build up the characters especially with Amy’s character. No one would expect that she will be the protagonist and gone are the days when men are the only heroic figure. What really impressed me was how the story progressed. From the start, you already have an idea how it began and if you don’t focus well enough, you might lose track of the story.

This movie also has eight nominations which are not usual for a sci-fi movie and not since E.T. But the difference of this movie from E.T. was that this is more realistic and not family oriented. This is not the movie that children can understand because the movie’s target audience are those who can also think while watching and being entertained. It requires your mind to be stimulated.

If you are a Trekkie/Star Trek fan like me, you will see how the Prime Directive of the Federation is suited for this movie since you will consider logical thinking and decisions when you are in this situation of establishing first contact.

If you are the type of audience who only needs to be entertained, then this movie is not for you. You might as well see Kung Fu Yoga since it does not require you to listen to the dialogues if you only wanted to be stimulated with the visual stunts of Jackie Chan. But if you like a quality movie, then this is for you.

During the last MMFF, we are introduced with quality movie making which most Filipinos are not ready for. But if you want to venture of watching movies with quality, then this is a good movie to start with because the material is something new that you haven’t seen from the usual movies and it is also unique but you can’t help compare it to Christopher Nolan’s previous work, Interstellar or Carl Sagan’s Contact.

Just like Contact, Arrival is also an adaptation from a short story, “Story Of Your Life” by Ted Chang which I wanted to read now after watching Arrival. Arrival will have a sneak preview on February 6 and 7 in selected cinemas and opens in all cinemas on February 15.  Arrival is distributed by Columbia Pictures.

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