Movie Review - Arrival

Arrival ***½ (out of 5) (PG-13) Here’s another case of aliens landing on Earth. But this one’s no f/x laden, epic-scale battle. It’s a thoughtful drama about how the world might handle such a new enigma. Set your adrenaline levels for the likes of Contact or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, rather than an Armageddon or either Independence Day opus.

Twelve huge vessels land around the globe, and remain silent. Leaders of each country debate attacking them or trying to establish communication. The US military calls upon a linguist (Amy Adams) and physicist (Jeremy Renner) to take the lead, while sharing intel with most of the other nations on what they’re learning. Adams figures out a way to begin understanding each other, though the process is quite slow for numerous reasons. Some grow impatient, urging destruction of the visitors, fearing their potential dangers more than anticipating any upsides to be derived. That tug-of-war seems all too similar to entrenched opposition on many current political topics, nationally and globally. It’s intriguing how almost every space adventure involves meeting new life forms from planets with a single, unified ethnicity and governance, when our own orb is so far from housing either.

The production is far more cerebral than visceral, which also means it unfolds at a slower pace than some would prefer, as in the time it takes that world to figure out if the visitors’ came as friends or foes. There’s nothing special in the acting, but the script features some intriguing perspectives on how we might establish dialogue with an alien race having no common reference points with our languages. If you arrive with patience, the two hours of running time should seem to have been well spent. (11/11/16)