Arrival

Another movie with a name of a twenty year old movie came out, and like that, this one is better than the big American piece.

Amy Adams interacts with an alien and forms too much of an attachment... only there's more than one alien, and it's just about how to talk to each other. Various countries decide to attack the aliens, so that's going to go well. Fortunately, of course, one person can save everyone, and guess who that is?

The first note: this is a very slow moving film. If you've seen the trailer, you know the basic set up, and this film takes ages to get there. Like with ID, this does take it's time to reveal the ship, but when they eventually do, it's almost incidental (I, at least, was busy looking at the great scenery when I realised what the film expected me to look at).

Then there's the point of the movie. I'm not so sure that I missed it so much as it was badly aimed. It could be about talking with foreigners, but the movie is more about Amy Adamns' daughter, and I'm not sure how that is thematically tied in to the rest of the movie. I got what was going on long before the character did, but the film ham-fistedly ties to be clever about it and just feels painful.

This could have been a great movie. I'm not saying it is even good.

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