A R R I V A L    4.0****
PROLOUGE:  Before I start the review I want to make a couple of comments. First “Arrival’ is one of the best Sci-Fi movies to comes along. Yes it has spaceships, yes it has weird looking aliens and yes the initial reaction is fear and to blow them to pieces before they annihilate earth… BUT it is so not the typical Sci-Fi movie. The aliens arrive in a friendly not threating way, invite humans to enter the spaceships and attempt to communicate. And the focus of the story is on the perplexing difficulty of establishing communication with an advanced alien species the process for which is fascinating & spellbinding .  But the main purpose of this comment is to let you know there is a wonderful subplot involving the  main character Louise played by Amy Adams . It is an important subplot with a fascinating surprise twist in the last part of the film . I did not pick up on it until toward the end . I wish I  had known going in and some of you may also want to know. . But many of you may rather try to figure it out for yourself . So in the main review I don't give it away i.e. no " spoilers". However below the review I have a Special Note that does explain.  So if you want to try first for yourself but come out confused you can come back to my review & get the answer .

 A R R I V A L    4.0****

       Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a linguist who teaches at a College. One day, twelve giant spacecrafts appear in random locations around the world. Louise's communication skills make her a necessary expert for the USA team as well as mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) . They attempt to decode and translate the language that the creatures inside the spacecrafts are using in order to prevent a global war. Alien invasion films have, frankly, been done to death. Arrival's script - penned by Eric Heisserer - is ingenious in that it finds an entirely new angle to focus the whole thing on. Rather than start a war and depict the bloodshed and trauma of an alien invasion, Arrival focuses on the struggle to communicate with the octopus shaped creatures with 7 tentacles (dubbed "Heptapods"), and what the aftermath of this could lead to if their mission succeeds.. The whole thing is woven together like a piece of art - the performances, dialogue, cinematography, soundtrack, screenplay, editing and direction all form one elegantly structured whole. It's a simply astonishing feat of film making.

. Amy Adams is superb here, giving a subdued but deeply moving performance. A lot of the film rests on her shoulders for its twists and turns , but she carries it without breaking a sweat. Never given any big Oscar-esque moments, Adams tells Louise's story in her softest moments and through her body language. It's an astoundingly delicate performance. Renner is also solid, and accompanies Adams nicely, even if he can't help but feel woefully overshadowed. Louise as a character is the film's most exciting element - a woman that uses her knowledge and skills to change the world in ways it has never been changed before, all of which comes down to language. When Arrival ends, you could spend hours thinking about the languages we speak and use every day. The potential behind this story was astronomical, and it delivers in spades.

Louise’s dream-like sequences which focus on Louise's young daughter look and feel like forgotten memories (but are they?), while the moments inside the spacecraft feel entirely alien. The production design is stunning, the large pitch black objects hovering over the cities feel instantly dark and threatening, and the brief sights of the creatures reveal something wholly original. In terms of technicalities and aesthetic, Arrival is a thing of beauty - a unique, visually striking film that you never want to take your eyes off of.

Arrival has stunning imagery and effects to play around with, but instead it focuses on language and communication. It also focuses on humanity and time and memory, and all that is worth fighting for on this planet. It is a breathtaking achievement, and one I already cannot wait to experience countless times again. In a year riddled with emotionless superhero films and crude comedies, Arrival is a godsend. Arrival is a film for the ages. Seek it out at all costs, and let it transport you across time and space only to bring you back down to Earth, bringing forth feelings you may never have experienced before. This, people, this right here is why I LOVE movies.

Rating: PG 13 for brief strong language; HOWEVER, this is a mentally challenging movie, a heavy thought journey and kids 12 and under may not be able to comprehend the story. It is NOT an action film. BUT some of those kids might be caught up in the visual splendor of the movie and the special effects to still enjoy it although they might not understand it.  

Clark

SPECIAL NOTE (Spoiler): At the beginning of the movie and through-out and concurrently with her task of trying to solve the aliens language, Louise is having dreams about her daughter Hannah who dies  in her early teens due to a terminal disease, all of which the audience sees as intimately heart-breaking flashbacks. Yet, the intriguing part is, and the big twist/surprise in the last 15 minutes is that  what we may have perceived as flashbacks were actually flash-forwards (Louise seeing her future). In fact,  Louise has never been pregnant nor married (although she has just met her future husband). It is through her contact and communication with the aliens that she is enlightened and acquires the ability to foresee the future. So at the end of the movie a big decision for Louise is whether she will still want to bring Hannah into the world knowing that she will lose her forever soon after?