Film Arrival

Planning to watch it some time this week.

Reviews seem mostly positive without reading them which is good. Do like movies that are similar to this in idea as it always interests me (even if they dont always deliver).
 
Haven't actually seen any Villeneuve films yet and should probably start before Blade Runner comes out. Like the concept of this, will wander along this week I think.
 
Enjoyed the movie. It would be great if more sci fi films tried to do something similar. More dialogue, less mid space adventures with bloodshed and madness. It's always more interesting if sci fi films are grounded in some sort of reality.
 
Saw it earlier and enjoyed it. I particularly liked how they handled the linguistics stuff. At times I thought it was going a bit Interstellar on us with the emotional aspects of the storyline, but it didn't stray too far into all that shite.

Did anyone else think the lighting was off? Even the outside shots in broad daylight seemed really dark to me, I wasn't sure if it was deliberately dark to help set the moody tone or the cinema I was in was crap.

Amy Adams was good in the 'Jodie Foster in Contact role', but felt that Whitaker was a bit flat in the 'nice military dude caught in the middle between the good scientists and the big bad government types' role.
 
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Good film, very thought provoking. Story quality wise, probably on par with Interstellar but not as good as Inception.
 
Tarrou said:
Saw it earlier and enjoyed it. I particularly liked how they handled the linguistics stuff. At times I thought it was going a bit Interstellar on us with the emotional aspects of the storyline, but it didn't stray too far into all that shite.

Did anyone else think the lighting was off? Even the outside shots in broad daylight seemed really dark to me, I wasn't sure if it was deliberately dark to help set the moody tone or the cinema I was in was crap.

Amy Adams was good in the 'Jodie Foster in Contact role', but felt that Whitaker was a bit flat in the 'nice military dude caught in the middle between the good scientists and the big bad government types' role.
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It was eye straining-ly dim.
 
The first ten minutes were an absolute nightmare on the eyes, but I wonder if that was in part down to the fact I had read the above. You quickly get used to the palette though.

The last 30 minutes were just immense. What a watch. I didn't want it to end when everything started clicking, I wanted more revelations.
 
I had no issues with the colour scheme or anything. But regardless, thought this was a really enjoyable movie and take on alien contact. And it had such a strong performance from Amy Adams (really dislike the way she has to portray Lois Lane). Its a really smart movie and strays from the typical stuff you would expect. (slow burner movie leading to the conclusion). Renner was good too.
 
It's good, but I feel having read the story beforehand took a lot away from it.

The acting is strong, the soundtrack is brilliant, and I thought it was visually splendid.
 
Archie Leach said:
Seriously though I'm a massive Villeneuve fanboi and defended Prisoners and Sicario to the death. Thia film is stoopid.
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Just out of curiosity, who did you defend those films against? They were pretty much universally lauded by both movie critics and fans alike.
 
I didn't think much of it. Lazy writing, contradictions and a failure to make the emotional moments properly connect.

5/10
 
I saw it today. Liked Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. I expected more for some reason. After the movie, I was left wondering what the exact point of the movie was. But, on the whole, it was well directed and the language part was handled well.
 
I liked it, but that was it. I didn't come away thinking it was brilliant, and we didn't talk about it much on the way home. We talked about the likelihood of an alien civilization contacting us, given the vastness of space.

I like the film's message that we should enjoy the good times and accept that bad times are gonna come, too, but that it's overall worth it.
 
Archie Leach said:
Seriously though I'm a massive Villeneuve fanboi and defended Prisoners and Sicario to the death. Thia film is stoopid.
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Thought Sicario was overrated and average. It was a case of being told countless times what a must-see flick it is and then was left wondering what was so great about it.
 
antihenry said:
Thought Sicario was overrated and average. It was a case of being told countless times what a must-see flick it is and then was left wondering what was so great about it.
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Agree with this. Good to see del Toro again in a role like that, but on the whole it was a little disappointing
 
Enjoyed it a lot, didn't realise it was based on a novel so might get that to see if it expands on anything.
 
I thought it was a bit "Meh"...The aliens didn't really do anything, and there was no real reason for them to come as far as I could tell...
 
Good film, I liked the approach and that it wasn't all about war and blowing up and big sky fights but the last half of it just seemed really hashed together. I loved the focus on getting to know them and the challenges involved with doing so but then all of a sudden

She just goes into a trance and can now all of a sudden perfectly understand and speak their language and what do you know, the rest of the film is solved because she can see the future.

It's just a little sudden and feels a bit weak, like a cop out to tie the story up but saying that I still really enjoyed it and the direction it took rather than an Independence Day route of aliens are evil and it leads to war.
 
Yeah, I thought the end was a little rushed (didnt have an idea of how long had passed in terms of time for that specific part).
 
Zarlak said:
Good film, I liked the approach and that it wasn't all about war and blowing up and big sky fights but the last half of it just seemed really hashed together. I loved the focus on getting to know them and the challenges involved with doing so but then all of a sudden

She just goes into a trance and can now all of a sudden perfectly understand and speak their language and what do you know, the rest of the film is solved because she can see the future.

It's just a little sudden and feels a bit weak, like a cop out to tie the story up but saying that I still really enjoyed it and the direction it took rather than an Independence Day route of aliens are evil and it leads to war.
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I got the impression that

...that didn't happen just when she went into the trance, it was happening since the start of the film - the visions of the kid were happening from the morning they arrived, so I'd say given the heptapods had foreknowledge of what would happen, they began communicating with her before she'd got anywhere near the ship, thus her brain was already "rewiring".
 
Ubik said:
I got the impression that

...that didn't happen just when she went into the trance, it was happening since the start of the film - the visions of the kid were happening from the morning they arrived, so I'd say given the heptapods had foreknowledge of what would happen, they began communicating with her before she'd got anywhere near the ship, thus her brain was already "rewiring".
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Yeah, but it was just out of the blue and an easy way to wrap the film up. Felt a little bit cheap to me, but still impressed with the film. I liked the twist with
the flashbacks actually being flash forwards, but it is still a little cheap to be like 'she solved the crisis because she can see the future'
 
Zarlak said:
Yeah, but it was just out of the blue and an easy way to wrap the film up. Felt a little bit cheap to me, but still impressed with the film. I liked the twist with
the flashbacks actually being flash forwards, but it is still a little cheap to be like 'she solved the crisis because she can see the future'
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Yeah it's a bootstrap paradox a little like Interstellar's, but I liked the concept enough for it to get away with it. The story and the aliens were quite Arthur C Clarke-like and there needs to be more sci fi like that. Especially liked the idea that they came for our help, not something boring like war or benevolence.
 
Horrible background music during 1st half of the movie. Just jarring.
And don't really buy into the plot. Future seeing aliens give parts of information to multiple countries to get the world to cooperate?
And don't really get what Jeremy Renner does in the movie? He's always there and makes only one contribution I can think of.

Decent watch. Tad slow and melodramatic. Better than Interstellar...but that's not really a high line to cross.
 
Ffs you bellend. You just gave away the plot. Thanks a lot.
 
If you're scared of spoilers, why are you in this thread?

- spoiler tags are not required if the thread is about a specific book or film. If you haven't watched or read the item in question don't go into the thread.
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