Arrival

Especially as an admirer of Denis Villeneuve, I regret that, in my opinion, Arrival stutters a little in the narrative entwinement of its two storylines. Louise’s life melodrama is powerful and the movie uses it to relay a more meaningful and tangible philosophical message than all other sci-fi movies from recent years (including the similarly intimate Gravity and Nolan’s bombastic brainless spectacle). This storyline won’t let you keep your eyes dry. But its interaction with the scientific thriller storyline about communication with aliens, whose purpose is to spur the viewer’s curiosity, bogs down in the last third. And not just because of the unnecessary, distracting detours, such as a group of rebel soldiers attacking an alien ship, but by failing to successfully combine the two narrative planes that are supposed to perfectly complement each other and knock out viewers by making some powerful point in climax. On the first viewing, I didn’t find the point all that breathtaking, while on the second viewing I, quite paradoxically, enjoyed Louise’s visions more as I knew what they meant thanks to prior knowledge of the ending. Neither of the viewings, though, brought me the emotional and intellectual ecstasy described by most of my fellow reviewers and which I’d frankly like to experience. The soundtrack and atmosphere are incredible, and Amy Adams is fantastic. (19.12.2016)

I would never have believed that a sci-fi film could say more about the nature of people in general than the hundreds of other psychological films that have graced cinema screens. This a cinema event with capital E, I've been waiting for sci-fi like this since Zemeckis's excellent Contact in 1997. And at the same time it's a litmus test of our population, whether you're idiots (like the guys two rows behind me, who spent the whole movie making jokes and unknowingly poking fun at their own idiocy) or sensitive people who can appreciate something like this. And Amy Adams is awesome. (21.11.2016)

A monumental, reflective, humanistic, moving sci-fi film. Exactly what Interstellar desperately wanted to be, but failed to achieve. Arrival is not without its minor issues, about which I may write later (IMHO, the way the script addresses the communication between the different world teams during the research is a little confusing), but the goosebumps at the end overcome all that. (11.11.2016)

This is the best film in about the last five years. It’s terse, brisk, clever, and in many ways bold. The best thing about it is that the sci-fi storyline is much less important than the personal one. I hardly need to see it 3 more times to appreciate the unique picture-sound interplay and award the editor a couple of golden statuettes. After it was over, I stood in the flying snow, wanting to do a lot of things, but then I realized that the best thing to do was to just let myself drift through the incredible flurry of all kinds of feelings. I've truly been waiting for a movie like this for years. (12.11.2016)

The Americans have finally decided to shoot a narrative sci-fi movie that, even though it’s lacking action, can still leave such a mark on the sci-fi genre that you’ll never be able to forget it. It even has innovative ideas and premises that aren’t cliché and they’re not based on a brand, unlike the comics movies industry. Arrival is a filmmaking triumph of the year. Not only does it come up with an interesting thought, it also turns it into a whole array of original ideas. For example, for a whole hour and a half, I thought that I was keeping up, but then in the last half an hour, I was completely lost and I had to keep thinking about the movie for the rest of the evening. That hasn’t happened to me in a long time and I’m always glad when it does. I think Denis Villeneuve is one of the most essential American (Canadian) contemporary filmmakers. Plus, I must thank Jóhann Jóhannson, the master of minimalism, for being extraordinary once again and choosing Max Richter to compliment his non-music. As I was saying, a movie that is genius as far as the idea goes, but also the production’s ration of sound to visuals, thus meeting all the requirements for high-quality science fiction. (07.12.2016)

I'll probably take some time to figure out if Arrival is one of the best films of the year or the absolute number one, but it was definitely better than I expected. Albeit in a slightly different way. Although the story of humanity's first contact with visitors from outer space works as "science fiction", it's still much stronger on an emotional and personal level. I won't go into some sort of breakdown, but the trailers offered the bare minimum of that layer of Arrival, so the film can surprise quite often, and thankfully always in a positive way. The acting is top-notch and Amy Adams is going for an Oscar nomination. Technically, visually and musically this is an absolute brilliant film that may have been inspired by Nolan somewhere, Malick somewhere and Spielberg somewhere, but overall it holds together without the slightest reservations and can confidently rank among the best that has been made in the smart sci-fi genre. I want to see it again. And Denis Villeneuve goes into my personal top 5. (16.05.2017)

I can argue that the screenplay is very stumbling, but I can't deny that one of the best living directors totally mesmerized me. The first third has a tension that takes your breath away (the thoughtfulness of the shots and their composition is far above anything you can see in Hollywood today). The remaining two-thirds can't help but hint at clumsiness and banality, but Young's darkened visuals and ingenious sound design accentuate the supporting emotions of Chiang's masterpiece. It is not a film about a close encounter with creatures from the stars, but about a close encounter with ourselves. With our phobias and mortality. And especially a film about the greatest curse of all - the linear perception of time. The plot sometimes includes phrasing twists and dull side characters, but this deep undertone, which the enchanting Nolan wanted so much in Interstellar, killed me - also because Amy Adams's performance is absolutely disarming. The canary, who accompanies scientific landings in the film as a sensitive sensor, is a good metaphor for Arrival. This film works with such subtle nuances that one can actually overlook them. They are hidden under strong vibrations, but even if they are weak, in the end they exceed everything. The level of expectations towards Blade Runner is reaching maximum. The best sci-fi of the year. (09.11.2016)

Lethal Contact. In the past, many giants of the silver screen have tried to convey space, time, size, relativity or being that go beyond the perception through the movie: from Kubrick, Mallick or Zemeckis to Nolan. Sometimes more or less successfully and sometimes absolutely ridiculously. Villeneuve is one of them. Also more or less successfully. The movie tries to use a smart and refined construction (to the extent that it is more interesting in what topics it describes than in the story it tells), a tangible subliminal tension and, above all, an intimate melancholic personal line that would like to raise emotions. And this is exactly the problem to some extent, because in the end it is cold and depersonalized, despite all the efforts. Although stylistically cool and depersonalized, but with regard to what emotions it is trying to raise, there is a noticeable contradiction in that. And even if it's about something completely different, what is a big letdown is that the linguistic line faded away extremely fast. Especially when the original went much further in this respect (Fermat's principle, etc.). SPOILER-like PS: I'm quite surprised that the movie doesn't follow the tradition of Czech and foreign movies and doesn’t immediately reveal the plot by using rather dramatic title à la "Memories of the future" or something similar. (10.11.2016)

The perfection of form, where every flyover, orbit, or simply a view of the elegance of anything is a visual fairy tale, won me over after a few minutes. I realized that Amy Adams is playing the role of her life right from the prologue. But I still remained sober, I still anxiously waited to see exactly how those touching family scenes would connect with the archetypal sci-fi plot, and until the very last moment, I didn't believe that they wouldn't appear as randomly thrown together elements. They didn't. Instead, Denis Villeneuve proves that he can cross genres in a Christopher Nolan-esque way, escalate tension, and share with us exhaustive spectator experiences that leave me so exhausted that I can't believe Arrival is really just a movie. Personal. (16.11.2016)

Condensed to the extreme, it can be said that the film is about communication. For the first time in its history, terrestrial civilization finds itself in contact with extraterrestrial technology and life originating from the depths of space. No one knows what the crews of the 12 giant spaceships are up to. The atmosphere quickly thickens, supporters of military action gain influence in some countries, and if someone who can find out what the visitors want is not found quickly, things will end in disaster. Arrival can rely on two prominent advantages. Amy Adams in the role of researcher Louise Banks got a unique chance to demonstrate sophisticated psychological acting to the maximum extent - her character practically never leaves the screen - and she used it, in my opinion, exceptionally well. Contemporary Hollywood does not give many opportunities to showcase civilian acting in films that aspire to be the "Event of the Season." Denis Villeneuve is rightly considered one of the most talented directors of our time. He did not make a conventional genre film or a grand blockbuster and instead opted for a measured intimate drama with a sensitive approach to his protagonist. The chosen design of the spaceships is original and impressive. If I compare Arrival to the prominent representatives of the sci-fi genre in recent years, I rank it above Gravity, but for example, Interstellar felt more attractive and impressive to me. Personally, I have a problem with the attempt at emotional impact, especially where the film starts philosophizing and dealing with metaphysics, I tend to miss the point. I consider some of the gifts given as Trojan horses, and those that the overgrown octopuses gave to the earthlings could have easily been left out. I disagree internally with the choice the protagonist made because I would stand on the side of her husband. And lastly, regarding the issue of communication with alien civilizations, I lean more toward the skeptics. Overall impression: 75%. (17.02.2017)

Where Christopher Nolan plants allegorical imagery, hard-to-grasp theses, black holes, and the best of Hans Zimmer, Denis Villeneuve relaxedly and lucidly composes one shot after another with surgical precision, not being unnecessarily pompous or rushing anywhere. At the same time, he does not try to impress the viewer with a wow effect. Why? Because he is better, smarter, more sophisticated and doesn’t need any of that. Arrival is the best drama in recent years. It is coherent, distinctively crafted, at times hypnotic, with a breathtakingly delivered narrative value. Nolan is as his creative peak now, Villeneuve is just warming up. The is how the technically lavish Interstellar was supposed to be. (12.11.2016)

Definitely a well made sci-fi, finally one again that doesn't need to revel in pointless effects, and that gets to the point quickly while still managing to be mysterious and suspenseful. The opening minutes, the introduction to the main characters and the first exploration of the ship even reminded me of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which made me very happy, as did the use of Dvořák's music. But what did it matter in the end, when the story gave it all a beating, which disappointed me as much as Nolan's Interstellar did last time. I don't want to give anything away, but especially the two time paradoxes with the book and the phone were too much for me. They deprived Arrival of most of the magic it had previously had. That’s too bad. (14.12.2016)

I should point out in advance that going to see Arrival in the cinema was the result of a completely spontaneous decision by my dear friends, sometime around seven in the evening, when, due to very specific circumstances, I already had five beers under my belt. This, much to my chagrin, negatively manifested itself in a blurred attention span in the opening minutes, but gradually, through its systematic and incredibly precise work with its own audiovisual construction and its unique temporal order, the film did almost the impossible and made me completely surrender to its palpable atmosphere and cleverly unravelled plot loops, even though the comfortably cushioned seat and the level of addictive substances in my blood were loudly asking for a deep sleep. For a long time I was partly disappointed by the monotonous development of the plot and the constant variations of the same shots and scenes, but Villeneuve once again shows his extravagance and, together with Jóhannsson's tool for dense atmosphere, breaks the established standards of genre aesthetics and helps the already great premise of the story to become irreversibly part of film history... Nolan's got one hell of a competitor, and the other five beers after the screening tasted as good as ever. ;) (11.11.2016)

Arrival is a film that will stick in my mind for some time to come, as it is definitely an unconventional take on sci-fi. What attracted me the most was the film's certain intimate atmosphere, which is not common in this genre, and that's why I appreciated this "modest" concept. I also have to praise the musical score, from which I would like to highlight in particular the opening and closing sequences, and besides that I liked the sound effects that accompanied the plot. In the last third Arrival gets a bit harder to process, because suddenly you don’t quite know know what actually happened, but if you think about it, you can come to a satisfactory explanation. Moreover, for me as a philologist and linguist, this film is almost a must-see. In short, a quality piece of filmmaking that I will definitely be happy to watch again, because this film was not made for a single viewing in my opinion. (29.11.2016)

An atypical sci-fi with a gloomy atmosphere, excellent score, and a quality cast. I’m guessing that many viewers will find this film difficult to understand, given that a lot of people have trouble mastering their own mother tongue. I have attended my share of training sessions and, except on very rare occasions, have been spectacularly bored. I was far from bored with this film despite a lot of writing in thick marker and cuttlefish secretions. (17.04.2017)

I wasn't really looking forward to this film because I recently read a review in a magazine from an author who seems to understand what film is about, but fortunately, Villeneuve and his work spoke for themselves and showed that it's still possible to make great sci-fi nowadays, which has beautiful visual aspects, and special effects, but also has a story, meaning, and an idea. (12.12.2016)

Villeneuve and his third great success (after Prisoners and Sicario). As usual, it's a different movie than it might have seemed based on the trailers. The sci-fi plot is overshadowed by the drama of the main character's life. Excellent visuals accompanied again by Jóhannsson’s unsettling music which perfectly captures the atmosphere. It’s not exactly the kind of music for those long winter evenings, though. It's the type of movie that requires your full concentration and attention to every detail. I'll watch Arrival at least once again, because despite its slow, slow pace, there are still a lot of details that can get overlooked the first time. PS: I will not compare it to Interstellar. Despite the remotely similar themes, they are completely different. Arrival requires time, investigation and immersion in the movie, and everyone can get something different out of it. Interstellar is about discovery, human courage and an endless desire for a good cause, while literally radiating optimism. (18.11.2016)