I've watched in theatre some days ago the Sci-fi movie "Arrival" and i enjoyed it a lot. As you probably know it tell the story of alien spaceships appearing at different places of the planet and although we've seen this before in Roland Emmerich movies i think it's fair to say that "Arrival" is the anti-Independence Day, the two couldn't be more far from each other.
Arrival is by far one of the smartest movie i've seen on the subject, one of the most realistic too. As a matter of fact "Arrival" starts and ends like a Terence Mallick movie and others inspirations include Steven Spielberg "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" although the very talented director Denis Villeneuve took care to stay away of Spielberg masterpiece.
Amy Adams is truly perfect in her role of a language specialist helping to communicate with the aliens and to find why they're here, and Jeremy Renner plays a physicist while Forrest Whitaker plays someone from the army. There is a big big twist in this movie and i take care to really don't tell you what it is, as it is a genius script idea. All i can say is this: if you find the movie slow or if you don't get what's happening, stay and be patient as all the pieces of the puzzle will come together near the end.
Arrival is not a blockbuster movie so don't expect epic battle with the aliens like in Independence Day. In exchange you have one of the smartest sci-fi movie made since decades and definitely one of the best movie of the year. Don't go with young kids, as they probably won't understand the storyline but if you're in the mood to see a smart movie brilliantly played and very elegantly filmed, then you'll be happily surprised and will keep thinking about "Arrival" long after you'll be out of the theatre.
Picture and video: copyright Paramount
