Arrival (12A) - Movie Review

A dark movie with a strong storyline, which could have been a run of the mill feature, but for the director, Denis Villeneuve, left the cinemagoer feeling like they were watching something like a documentary, rather than a work of fiction.
Through this atmospheric thriller, there is much sadness due to the early display of the life of the lead character, Dr. Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams.  It’s probably the first time there has been a sci-fi female movie lead, since Sigourney Weaver in the Alien movies, or Jodie Foster in ‘Contact’ in 1997.  In fact there are minor similarities in the story to the Oscar nominated movie, ‘Contact’.
The plot of ‘Arrival’ involves aliens hovering in ships over cities all over the world, and is now showing at Athlone IMC.  Louise is an expert linguist, and from her academic teaching job at a university, she is headhunted in X-Files fashion, to help with communications with the aliens, by the US military, and a Col. Weber, played by Forest Whitaker
The tension builds well in the first twenty minutes, but it waned a bit after that for another twenty, until the movie really found its feet.
Jeremy Renner was subdued in his lingual role, where he played Ian, but after watching the whole movie, it will become obvious, why he plays his role as he does.
The difficulty and frustrations of Louise and Ian while communicating with the aliens are acted well by both stars, and the feature never lets up on its dark tone.
The sense of war being at close hand is shown and felt by the audience, as China and other countries become hostile to any talks with the aliens.
The atmosphere in the movie is intense, and there are times it all looks like a view of real people's lives.  It takes a while to build up, but when it does, it displays a masterpiece, writes David Flynn