Arrival (2016)

 

Sometimes you need a movie that makes you work for it's reward. You have to really sit and pay attention to what is happening here when humans make first contact with aliens who arrived with 12 massive ships. Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams are scientists trying to communicate with the aliens. Forrest Whitiker is the Army Colonel who has bigger issues. He supports his team but he also is weighing a bigger threat the aliens might represent. Whitiker is great in this as he tries to avoid the inevitable human mistakes that could lead to our destruction. The whole story is rooted in science and linguistics and the best parts of this film come from smart solutions to a difficult problem. This is one to soak into. As I said, it's a thinker and not the human fight the aliens kind of science fiction film you have gotten used to.

It also didn't pass by me that these aliens were HEPTOPODS and had seven tentacles....YES TENTACLES. Now in all the movies I have ever seen, tentacles are never a good thing. So I just say we take off and nuke the sight from orbit (it's the only way to be sure). Of course that is one of the options that many on Earth want to take to deal with the aliens just because we like to blow shit up.

 

I enjoyed this one a lot. I felt smart while watching it and every human reaction to the Arrival rang true. Everyone reads something different into the small scraps of information the humans are able to get from the aliens and it almost leads to our destruction. That stuff is really interesting because by raising the stakes the search for information become even more crucial. The resolution to the story was both smart and satisfying and twisted my noodle a bit. But she saved the world and was rewarded for it. Amy Adams impressed me once again. Smart and satisfying in a cool metaphysical way.