This film has got a 93 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has doubled its budget at the box office but I still feel that Arrival could be the most underrated film I’ve seen in a very long time.
In a year that has featured Deadpool, Zootopia and Moonlight, just to name a few dope films – Denis Villeneuve piece is the one that leaves me struggling for adjectives. I could go with grand, beautiful, complicated and weird to describe the film but intimate, simple and bitter-sweet could equally be used.
This sub-genre – the alien invasion film – should feel so predictable. Arrival should be dead on… erm… well you know. But the film feels astonishingly fresh that I still don’t believe it. Look, I just can’t believe this film exists – and more to the point, I can’t believe someone wrote this story.
Like I have said, it is both complicated and simple. The story and sub-plots are very easy to follow but when they come together they create something that feels so fresh… fresh and complicated. Two people could go into this film and they could have different but legitimate views about the timeline of events.
I think that is what blew me away the most. Something as simple as the timeline shouldn’t make such a lasting and positive impression on me, but it has. This film reminds me of Christopher Nolan’s Memento and that thought gets me so excited about future Villeneuve joints.
Amy Adams should win an Oscar. There is no other way to put it, she was extraordinary in this. Her performance should not be underestimated. How does she… I didn’t have a clue that… (sighs) she is just amazing. Jeremy Renner was also dope, which is a huge shock because he usually leaves me underwhelmed by his performance.
This is a film that demands to be seen more than once, and preferably at the cinema. Watch this film and tell me that the game (the alien invasion genre) hasn’t changed.
