Review – Arrival

Arrival is a jaw-dropping masterpiece.  It is a simple story at its surface, but peels back layers to reveal something truly special.  Dennis Villeneuve has created a powerful, visually stunning film that pushes the science-fiction genre to new heights.

When alien spaceships land all across the globe, the government seeks the help of a linguist (Amy Adams) to help communicate with the aliens.

Amy Adams is one my favorite actresses ever and is one of the best actresses working in Hollywood today.  Her work in Arrival is yet another great performance and could be considered her career best.  She is the backbone of this movie.  The emotional epicenter and our perspective throughout the entire movie.  Dr. Louise Banks is a woman who experienced a great tragedy and must put that haunts her, even when she is needed the most.  Her wonder and awe of the aliens is exactly how we feel when we first see them, and we feel her frustration and inner-turmoil as she gets deeper and deeper into the mission.  This is one of the finest performances of 2016 and one that should be a surefire Oscar contender.

Director Denis Villeneuve solidifies his status as one of the best directors working today.  After making one of the best thrillers of the decade in Prisoners (2013) and his relentlessly intense look at cartel wars in Sicario (2015), I felt that all he needed to truly prove his greatness was tackle a true genre film, and he has done that with Arrival.  Like Villeneuve’s other films, this is filmmaking at it’s best.  He takes a simple story and layers it with complex themes about loss, love, communication, and the idea of listening, making it one of the smartest movies of 2016.  He does a perfect job of keeping us in wonder the whole movie.  Why are the aliens there?  What are they going to do?  Are they good or bad?  What is the world going to do?  Nothing is predictable and nothing is answered until the end, and it is something you will never see coming.

This is a technical achievement on every level.  With it’s haunting score, marvelous cinematography, and perfect pacing, everything is hitting on all cylinders.  The visual effects on the UFO’s and the aliens is seamless, making this event seem incredibly realistic and genuinely unsettling.

Arrival is one of those movies that the less you know going into it, the better it will.  This is science-fiction at it’s absolute best.  This is a profound, incredibly smart, simple movie with big ideas and a lot of emotion that is in the running for the best movie of 2016.

MY RATING – 4/4

Did you see Arrival?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or find Kevflix on Facebook and YouTube by searching Kevflix.