In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “Arrival takes itself very seriously. Arrival tells an insane story. What Arrival forgets to do is have fun with it.”
“Memory is a strange thing.”
The academy awards have often been accused of being elitist. Only awarding highbrow, often little seen movies, so voters can feel smart. One of the reasons the Best Picture category was opened up a few years ago to include up to 10 movies was so more crowd friendly, box office hits could be included, instead of exclusively recognising prestige, “important” movies. Last year was an example of that system working, with fun, genre escapism being nominated in the form of Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian. This year, the genre, blockbuster slot is filled by a far less worthy recipient, Arrival.
When giant, alien spacecraft appear in a dozen different places all over the globe, world leaders freak out as they try to determine if these visitors come in peace, or if they have something more threatening in mind. Recruiting college professor and linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams), the American government makes contact with the seven limbed aliens they dub heptapods. Communication and translation proves to be a slow process, but piece by piece, Louise, along with physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), builds a rapport with extra-terrestrial visitors. (more…)