Denis Villeneuve has made some of the best sci-fi movies, but Arrival is very different to Blade Runner 2049 and Dune: Part One in that it takes a more psychological drama tone. It still offers a grand cinematic spectacle but unlike other alien invasion films, where a close encounter tends to lead to conflict, Arrival focuses on unravelling how scientists might try to communicate with extraterrestrial life forms that visit Earth. It does away with the idea that sci-fi movies have to be this big bombastic blockbuster filled with incredible action sequences, and instead takes a more heartfelt approach.
It’s stuck with me since first seeing it and if you haven’t, then now’s a great time to as it’s part of everything new on Prime Video in October in the US. Don’t have a subscription to Prime Video? Lucky for you, it’s also one of the five best free movies you can stream on Amazon Freevee and Tubi so you have no excuse not to watch it. Meanwhile, those in the UK can find it on Netflix, while Aussies can catch it on Stan.
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On the surface, Arrival is a movie about having a close encounter. When 12 large mysterious – and mysteriously-shaped (they look like vertical standing peanuts) – spaceships land on Earth, the world’s best scientists are called on to help investigate the strange phenomena. For the US military, that’s linguist Dr Louise Banks, who leads a team of scientists to try and translate the alien’s language. A part of the team is physicist Dr Ian Donnelly, who is paired with Louise to go inside one of the spaceships and try to speak with two aliens known as Heptapods.
The Heptapods are some of the most striking aliens I’ve seen in cinema. Forget little green martian men, these take on the form of giant abstract spiders – but with seven legs. In most scenes with the Heptapods, they’re covered in a dense fog and due to an invisible barrier, Louise and Ian aren’t able to get to close to them. Using the glass-like divide, the Heptapods are able to shoot an ink-like substance on it to form a series of semasiographic round symbols, which is what is used to try and decipher their language. That might seem like I’ve given away a key crux of the film, but believe me I haven’t – there’s so much more to this then the narrative about trying to speak to the aliens.
Adapted by Eric Heisserer (Bird Box) from Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life and Others, the short story that Arrival is based on is as captivating as the movie. Adams narration throughout the movie captures the same emotional punch as its source material that it’s based on. It’s a movie where the ease of rewatching something on the best streaming services or the best free streaming services really comes into its own, because you’ll absolutely want to see it more than once, because it only gets better after see the end – you’ll want to revisit key dialogue moments that will have more meaning that you might have initially thought.
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