Watched the film yesterday, gotta say I hated it. I think it's a horrible movie. And I firmly do believe it won't be nominated come Oscar season. I appreciate the direction of the film, I love the cinematography, music, and visual effects. But that's where the positives stop for me. Sicario was one of my favorite films of last year. And I think Prisoners was awesome as well. The thing about those 2 films that really shined for me was the dynamic and chemistry between the characters. I think Dennis Villeneuve does that best. The chemistry between Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Josh Brolin was fantastic. Same thing in Prisoners, with Viola Davis, Gyllenhaal, and Hugh Jackman.
In Arrival, the characters were pretty weak. Especially Jeremy Renner who really brought nothing to the film. The relationship between Amy Adams' character and Renners was not believable. In fact Renners character had the most laughable line of the year in any film with "Do you want to make a baby" which I think is an absolute joke. Forrest Whitaker's character was one dimensional for the most part, and didn't have much of a presence. Amy Adams was fine. Didn't hate the character of Louise, but I don't think it was as great as people make it out to be. The dynamic between the characters was just lost, and it really rubbed me the wrong way. It's very odd for Dennis to do that.
The story is the biggest problem for me. It makes no sense whatsoever. I honestly don't understand how people even like this. So the aliens came to earth, because they have a weapon, this weapon is her seeing the future. But she only remember seeing the future when they tell her because the whole film is so fabricated. Why couldn't she remember the whole language in the beginning of the film to spare us this piece of garbage.
The film is filled with plot holes. So she stopped the Chinese leader from firing at the aliens because she told him the exact same words as his mother? What is this BvS? How did they decipher the aliens language? That is NEVER explained in the film. NEVER. We just see them trying to crack it with computers and software, but it's never explained properly. And all of a sudden Amy Adams can understand everything. The Aliens came to provide a gift to humanity, because humanity will need their help in 3000 years. And they just leave. That's it. The twist wasn't satisfying. I felt robbed. I walked away with a real bad taste in my mouth.
Here's the thing, when filmmakers want to do twists in movies, they have to earn it. The twist in this movie wasn't earned. It wasn't set up well. In fact it felt like a cop-out. It felt put in there as a cheat. I felt cheated by the end of it. And I know a lot of the people I were talking to by the end of it, were not satisfied at all. It was just a bizarre turn. I know for a sure I didn't like it, and I am confident this film will not be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. You heard it here first.
3/10. It's bad.
