{"id":13048,"date":"2016-11-30T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T17:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13048"},"modified":"2016-11-29T10:36:29","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T18:36:29","slug":"to-see-or-not-to-see-arrival-almost-awesome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/11\/30\/to-see-or-not-to-see-arrival-almost-awesome\/","title":{"rendered":"To See or Not to See<\/em>: Arrival<\/em> almost awesome"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Arrival
\n<\/i>3\/5<\/p>\n

Arrival<\/i> (2016) comes to us as the latest in a string of science-fiction movies notable for the way they build upon philosophical issues with the tools their genre gives them. However, while Arrival<\/i> stands on the same podium as its peers, it does so only in their shadows.<\/p>\n

Whoever said \u201ccomparisons are odious\u201d clearly was not a critic, and was never faced with a line of films like Gravity<\/i> (2013), Interstellar<\/i> (2014), Ex Machina<\/i> (2015), and Arrival<\/i>. In this day and age, the film world is a seething pool of piranhas, each trying to get a small morsel of originality, and to not compare them to each other would be to not acknowledge that they are all eating from the same carcass.<\/p>\n

That said, Arrival<\/i> is a good film in many respects. For one, it\u2019s a movie about aliens that features remarkably little violence. The aliens themselves, and their relationship with humans, are fascinating (even if their purpose on Earth is vague), and Amy Adams as linguist Louise Banks is a vision of suppressed emotion.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the film attempts to be more and to say more than the average sci-fi film. It attempts to comment (topically) on a single-but-divided human race. It has interesting insights into language and its relationship to personality (admittedly, nothing you couldn\u2019t read in a first-year psychology textbook).<\/p>\n

Most importantly, though, Arrival<\/i> tried, and it didn\u2019t fail by much. I have respect for any film\u2014especially a blockbuster\u2014that tries to do more than it\u2019s asked to do, that tries to give more to the audience than adrenaline and dopamine, that tries to challenge them intellectually.<\/p>\n

However, when compared to a film such as Interstellar<\/i>, Arrival<\/i>\u2019s shortcoming can be seen clearly. Comparisons between the two blockbusters make Interstellar<\/i>\u2019s mastery of film narration become apparent. It\u2019s a film that tackles the most difficult questions out there\u2014who are we as a species? What is our species worth? What in the heck is time?\u2014but keeps the audience engaged at all times. It\u2019s a film that isn\u2019t scared of experimentation, and director Christopher Nolan, known for his awe-inspiring visuals, is able to show us things rather than merely talk about them.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the concepts dealt with in Arrival<\/i> are too abstract for its conventional visual approach. Interstellar<\/i> matched \u201cwow\u201d ideas with \u201cwow\u201d visuals\u2014Arrival<\/i> often seems too timid.<\/p>\n

In the end, though, this is because Arrival<\/i> is not an all-out space opera like Interstellar<\/i> was. In many ways, it\u2019s a family drama masquerading as a sci-fi film, and a touching one at that.<\/p>\n

But the result of this combination is that the audience is prepared to be \u201cwowed\u201d\u2014ready for something epiphanic\u2014and instead is left with Louise\u2019s personal drama\u2014drama that would be extremely moving were we not ready for something more thematically interstellar.<\/p>\n

Having said that, Arrival<\/i> is superior to any film in the theatre today (admittedly not a stupendous achievement when up against Inferno<\/i>, The Accountant<\/i>, and Trolls<\/i>), and it\u2019s a film that asks more of you than your eyeballs: you must engage with your brain as well.<\/p>\n

Most of all, though, this is a film that swings for the fences, which is an admirable trait regardless of ability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arrival 3\/5 Arrival (2016) comes to us as the latest in a string of science-fiction movies notable for the way they build upon philosophical issues with the tools their genre gives them. However, while Arrival stands on the same podium as its peers, it does so only in their shadows. Whoever said \u201ccomparisons are odious\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-november-30-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13050,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13048\/revisions\/13050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}