Arrival (2016) ****/5: A good film but it never really challenged the traditional presentation of aliens and so there are a lot of hackneyed elements.

There’s no denying that I’m late with this review. I have been out of action for awhile so I am playing catch up. Of course I wouldn’t have any excuse if I was paid to write film reviews. So I have a lot of catching up to do for 2016. I’m starting with Arrival which is a good sci-fi film. I actually was thinking about watching it last year after seeing the trailer but I thought that it wouldn’t be worth the effort ($$$) to watch  yet another film about an alien landing and how much mysterious,  advanced and enlightened they are. After watching this film it’s clear that is the case. I mean that the predictable elements are all in place:  Very advanced and enlightened aliens come to earth but in this case it’s not for war. They want to help humankind which is another way of saying that they are still more advanced and enlightened than us. It seems that Interstellar has set a trend which I’ll identify later. Regardless of these predictable elements the film does set a standard when it comes to the communication process between us and aliens in the fictional world. I am really glad that a film has been released detailing in painstaking level of detail how difficult it would be for earthlings to communicate with advanced aliens of this type if they’re out there. This film has a set a standard. It’s also one of the few sci-fi films where a linguist is the star.

This film is about the arrival of 12 alien ships at different sites across the globe and the difficulty of communication them which can lead to serious misunderstanding which in this case is war. The film also explores the aliens’ culture of expression through their interaction with the linguist, Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and scientist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) who are recruited by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to make sense of the aliens’ language in order to determine what their purpose is on earth. This leads to all sorts of mysterious happenings that become apparent through the wearying effects of the exercise on Louise who is dealing with her own troubles. Louise holds the key to unlocking the mystery of the aliens in order to prevent an outbreak of war between the aliens and humans.

Positives

The primary positive for me is the detailed process of communication between the aliens and the humans represented by Louise. I remember watching Man of Steel and saying to myself how do they understand the language of humans so easily. Are they that advanced? What does kryptonian sound like? I get that it’s a comic book film but this film has hopefully set a standard where even later comic book films will have to take the issue of communication seriously. Other sci-fi films develop some gibberish that the aliens speak. This is evident with Star Wars and some others but in most cases the dominant language is still English. In Interstellar the advanced beings that were guiding the humans were omnipresent but only communicated by reaching out to humans through a higher dimension and by making the quest to find a new planetary home much easier. These other beings could move easily through different dimensions etc. They were much more advanced than us lesser mortals who require spaceships. The aliens in this film are not as advanced as the ones in Interstellar but they are capable of some mind bending of their own. The inscrutable nature of their language only makes them appear even more advanced than us because of their effects on Louise when it’s discovered that time can be altered and there can be new beginnings based on interactions across the time dimension. Time can be manipulated based on the person’s consciousness. The mystery is obviously about how this impacts Louise who is the chosen one to stave off global war. There is a certain mystery regarding her own life which is literally supposed to be a cerebral experience because a lot of things are changed through her own consciousness which has been advanced to a near godlike level. She can manipulate time by being present in different time zones through her consciousness. An extraordinary gift that comes when she fully understands the aliens and their intent. Even though their true purpose is a bit contrived as usual, I doubt any film can make aliens appear as genuinely advanced species without making them as inscrutable as possible or difficult to understand. If they do come plainly then they won’t seem so advanced.

I liked how the language of aliens are presented. I just never understood how easy it was for them to understand what the earthlings were saying. Maybe because they can get inside our heads. Again they are just so advanced.

The acting is pretty good. It wasn’t spectacular. Much was made of Amy Adam’s performance but it was fairly straightforward. There is some genuine tension towards the end however and it made the film more interesting being rooted in real world events.

I also liked that the issue was primarily a global issue. As a global issue a good point was made in the film that there is no one dominant force that governs the entire planet which makes the disunity among the various countries of the globe quite obvious. I still wasn’t clear why the answer lay with an American although China does have an important role to play in the affair through its military leader. So while it’s still American centric the presentation of the global dimension was effective.

I can see why it won an award for sound effects. I liked the cinematography because you do get caught up in this fictional episode and how the aliens are presented. It’s pretty clear that they are the typically strange looking, mysterious creatures that we humans can’t fathom but while watching the film the presentation did not ring false and kudos must go to the visual team

Negatives

The primary negative for me were the very predictable elements. The film tried to be very mysterious but this never removed some of the hackneyed elements with films such as this: the mystery of the alien, their advanced and enlightened nature and their grand purpose. This film will never be as great as a film as straightforward as E.T. despite its grand agenda. I’m hoping that there’s a sequel that will clear up a lot of issues especially as humans will be doing these aliens a grand favour in the distant future. Maybe by then we will be very advanced. The sequel would be interesting if it is indeed set 3000 years into the future because by then we would have a much greater understanding of this particular alien species. It’s pretty clear that the more the mystery of the aliens is unlocked the more banal will be the presentation. This film never really fundamentally altered the general traditional presentation of aliens. It does go into more detail but being too mysterious can be your undoing because when the explanation comes, as it did in Interstellar, it is pretty ineffective and reveals its fictional limitations.

I see where they made the personal story of Louise seem just as important as the global struggle in order to understand the particular nature of the gift resented by the aliens but it never grabbed me on a gut level. The shifting of her consciousness through time does hold some mystery but it was not as emotionally captivating. The mystery takes away a lot from the actual personal story because there is a lot of convenient elements towards the end because you’re not sure if the film begins at the end or the end. This is somewhat clever and should make for repeated viewings but it takes away from the early moments. The mystery could have gone beyond Louise’s personal tragedy and be more engaged with the future. The moments where the film is engaged with the future is more interesting because of the suspense in the final moments. The clues in the past were also effective but the idea that she altered time through her consciousness defeated the purpose for me. Her story should have remained as is but she would have felt much better with the knowledge of the various revelations that came with time shifting through the past.  I guess it was a gift from the advanced aliens. If that’s the only way they can be understood then we should really wait for another 3000 years.

I wasn’t clear about why Louise is the chosen one and again the film never broke down the American centric barrier. Maybe it’s because she decided to get up close and personal.

All in all it’s a good film but I don’t think it did enough to radically change how aliens are presented in film.