Denis Villenueve is, full stop, one of my 3 or 4 favorite directors working today. His career is all of 5 years old at this point but his films have all, to this point, been distinctive, dark, and compelling enough to mark him as a director to watch. Prisoners and Sicario are two of the most memorable films for me of the last few years and his style - naturalistic yet stylized, artfully shot but relying on natural sounds at the expense of score and soundtrack, make his films intense and intimate feeling. (Oh, and for what it's worth, he's directing the Blade Runner sequel so mark that one down)
So when it was announced that his next project would be a sci-fi film about first contact with extraterrestrial life - I was a little surprised, but immediately on board. Enter, Arrival.
We are placed in an unspecified near-present where mysterious objects obviously of extraterrestrial origin suddenly appear in various spots around the planet. As the world panics, experts are tasked with figuring out just who the visitors are and what they want before the entire situation escalates into a potential war. Louise (Amy Adams) is a linguistics professor and Ian (Jeremy Renner) is an astrophysicist and the two are brought in to hopefully find a way to communicate with the aliens in the spacecraft currently hovering above Montana.
The Good: like all of Villenueve's films to date this one looks immaculate. He has such a unique and valuable sense of space, of atmosphere, of setting. He uses very little score and soundtrack, relying instead on sounds from the environment and events happening on screen, giving this film a surreal sense of naturalism despite its otherworldly focus. The cast is tremendous. Especially Adams, but Renner and the always great Forrest Whitacker are great too, but Adams truly delivers a tour de force in this role. Her Louise is hyper-competent yet morose, intuitive yet brash, and so much of the film happens within her head that a lesser actor could have made the entire enterprise fall flat from the jump. Paced like a thriller yet at its heart a Contact-style meditation on the nature of communication, language, humanity and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, the film is equal parts Terrance Malick and Spielberg, and I mean that with the highest possible praise. Villenueve's Blade Runner 2049 simply can't come fast enough.
The Bad: there isn't much here, but if I do have criticisms it's that the entire operation on the ground is run by a colonel - and given that we are dealing with extraterrestrial contact, it seems unlikely that the joint chiefs or POTUS wouldn't be directly involved. Additionally, the film wraps up so quickly that you'll undoubtedly be left with questions - as I was.
Ultimately, in an era of action packed spectacle, an intimate, ultimately optimistic and uplifting meditation on the very nature of communication and understanding itself may be just what the doctor ordered in our dark times. Arrival is intimate, moving, unexpected, shot beautifully, tremendously acted and truly a gorgeous film. My favorite of the year so far.
Hi! Remember me?? I used to review all of the movies I saw back in the halcyon days of 2014ish. Well, I've decided that I need to return to this important public service in time for awards season, so I plan on reviewing the movies that I see and have seen in some kind of haphazard fashion for my own satisfaction more than anything else. If you enjoy them, awesome! If not... oh. By my count I'm 14 movies behind at the moment, so we'll see if I ever ACTUALLY get current or if I just abandon the Spotlights and Revenants of the world to the abyss. Time (and my own laziness..) will tell.
So, if you're new here, allow me to reiterate, as I do roughly twice a year, that I'm an unabashed Marvel fan boy and have been for as long as I can recall. I fully recognize that your mileage may vary as far as Marvel's cinematic universe goes, and that's entirely your prerogative. However, I feel that the magnitude of Marvel's (and Disney's) achievement with the shared movie universe cannot be understated. Through 14 films and counting now, these films share characters, settings and interconnected events to greater or lesser extent with greater or lesser effectiveness all in the name of creating the comic book experience on the silver screen. When it's good, it's great, as Civil War and Avengers demonstrate, and when it's bad or even "meh", as in Iron Man 2 & 3, this shared structure can be an anchor which ultimately drags down the enterprise, but the shared universe allows for levels of characterization and narrative depth that simply aren't possible in a single film or even a franchise. One thing that Marvel has managed to do effectively over the last 18 months or so is successfully expand its shared universe into heretofore untouched areas that really enrich the enterprise as a whole - Ant Man managed to fit effectively into the larger narrative while introducing people and events that neatly fit within its own narrative and Guardians of the Galaxy took Marvel into the weird and awesome wider cosmos.
Enter: Doctor Strange. As a confession, I've never read a single Dr. Strange comic in my life and I don't know much about him other than that he exists and that he's a sorcerer of some kind. This one promises to expand Marvel's film universe into magic and mysticism and all sorts of new weirdness that can hopefully expand the entire endeavor. Dr. Stephen Strange is a wildly successful and arrogant neurosurgeon who finds himself lost and desperate for answers following a horrible accident. These answers lead him to a mysterious mystical teacher where he discovers that the world is a much more complicated place than he could have ever imagined.
The Good: if there's one thing that Marvel has consistently nailed, it's the casting. Starting with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, Marvel has signed actors who allow the sometimes formulaic and familiar plots to rise above typical superhero dreck through the strength of their charisma and performances. Marvel simply could not have cast a better Dr. Strange than Benedict Cumberbatch. He manages to effortlessly express extreme competence and yet shock at the mind blowing situations he find himself in. The supporting cast is equally strong, and Tilda Swinton as "the ancient one" was inspired casting. Her otherworldly look combined with her Tilda Swinton-ness created a one of a kind character who really adds to the air of mysticism and... strange-ness underlying the entire affair. Other than the cast (Chiwetel Ejiofor - I still have no idea how to pronounce his name - is strong as always and rises above the role which easily could have been one of forgettable sidekick) the main strength of this film both as a standalone work AND within the larger Marvel pantheon is just how strange and trippy the visuals and plotting are. I know that Dan Harmon (my man) of Community and Rick and Morty fame was brought in to consult on wacky sci fi issues, and it shows in that the narrative is crazy - hopping dimensions and realities - but also crisp and tight - managing to pack an origin not only of a character but of an entire corner of the world in under 2 hours. This short run time is refreshing in our era of 30 minute fight sequences, and it's to be commended. The sci fi/magic/mumbo jumbo is Inception meets Harry Potter meets The Matrix but somehow it works and it's refreshing and smart and new in a superhero genre that sometimes can consist of nothing more than people punching each other large distances.
The Bad: ultimately, even with the trippy visuals and weird pseudo-science/magic, it feels like the movie plays it safe and doesn't go the extra weird mile that could have made this film something special. That's not necessarily a bad thing in that this is simply an origin story - but there are pieces here that could have made this flick a standalone classic on its own accord. Additionally - as has unfortunately been the case more often than not in the MCU - the villain (a perfectly cast Mads Mikkelson) feels underdeveloped and wasted. It feels like a shame to bring in an actor of his caliber and use him as nothing more than a throwaway foil. Speaking of wasted, Rachel McAdams could be completely cut out of this movie and it wouldn't change a single plot point, theme or substantial element. I'm not sure if most of her role was cut out of the final film or if she just wanted a paycheck, but it seems bizarre to case a "love interest" with such a known quantity only to have her twiddle her thumbs throughout.
Ultimately, this is a worthy addition to the Marvel Canon. I'd put it somewhere in the 2nd tier of Marvel films, below the GREAT movies like Avengers, the first Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, but it stands proudly on its own accord and solidly establishes a perfectly cast and entertaining new member of the Marvel world. Horror writer/director Scott Derrickson wrote and directed, and he establishes himself as a potentially unique voice and visual eye to look out for. This film subverts expectations and employs some truly unique and trippy visuals - it's definitely worth a watch.
As always with Marvel, there's post-credits scenes - 2 of them.
