Arrival

I would never have believed that a sci-fi film could say more about the nature of people in general than the hundreds of other psychological films that have graced cinema screens. This a cinema event with capital E, I've been waiting for sci-fi like this since Zemeckis's excellent Contact in 1997. And at the same time it's a litmus test of our population, whether you're idiots (like the guys two rows behind me, who spent the whole movie making jokes and unknowingly poking fun at their own idiocy) or sensitive people who can appreciate something like this. And Amy Adams is awesome. (2016-11-21)

A monumental, reflective, humanistic, moving sci-fi film. Exactly what Interstellar desperately wanted to be, but failed to achieve. Arrival is not without its minor issues, about which I may write later (IMHO, the way the script addresses the communication between the different world teams during the research is a little confusing), but the goosebumps at the end overcome all that. (2016-11-11)

Especially as an admirer of Denis Villeneuve, I regret that, in my opinion, Arrival stutters a little in the narrative entwinement of its two storylines. Louise’s life melodrama is powerful and the movie uses it to relay a more meaningful and tangible philosophical message than all other sci-fi movies from recent years (including the similarly intimate Gravity and Nolan’s bombastic brainless spectacle). This storyline won’t let you keep your eyes dry. But its interaction with the scientific thriller storyline about communication with aliens, whose purpose is to spur the viewer’s curiosity, bogs down in the last third. And not just because of the unnecessary, distracting detours, such as a group of rebel soldiers attacking an alien ship, but by failing to successfully combine the two narrative planes that are supposed to perfectly complement each other and knock out viewers by making some powerful point in climax. On the first viewing, I didn’t find the point all that breathtaking, while on the second viewing I, quite paradoxically, enjoyed Louise’s visions more as I knew what they meant thanks to prior knowledge of the ending. Neither of the viewings, though, brought me the emotional and intellectual ecstasy described by most of my fellow reviewers and which I’d frankly like to experience. The soundtrack and atmosphere are incredible, and Amy Adams is fantastic. (2016-12-19)

This is the best film in about the last five years. It’s terse, brisk, clever, and in many ways bold. The best thing about it is that the sci-fi storyline is much less important than the personal one. I hardly need to see it 3 more times to appreciate the unique picture-sound interplay and award the editor a couple of golden statuettes. After it was over, I stood in the flying snow, wanting to do a lot of things, but then I realized that the best thing to do was to just let myself drift through the incredible flurry of all kinds of feelings. I've truly been waiting for a movie like this for years. (2016-11-12)

Lethal Contact. In the past, many giants of the silver screen have tried to convey space, time, size, relativity or being that go beyond the perception through the movie: from Kubrick, Mallick or Zemeckis to Nolan. Sometimes more or less successfully and sometimes absolutely ridiculously. Villeneuve is one of them. Also more or less successfully. The movie tries to use a smart and refined construction (to the extent that it is more interesting in what topics it describes than in the story it tells), a tangible subliminal tension and, above all, an intimate melancholic personal line that would like to raise emotions. And this is exactly the problem to some extent, because in the end it is cold and depersonalized, despite all the efforts. Although stylistically cool and depersonalized, but with regard to what emotions it is trying to raise, there is a noticeable contradiction in that. And even if it's about something completely different, what is a big letdown is that the linguistic line faded away extremely fast. Especially when the original went much further in this respect (Fermat's principle, etc.). SPOILER-like PS: I'm quite surprised that the movie doesn't follow the tradition of Czech and foreign movies and doesn’t immediately reveal the plot by using rather dramatic title à la "Memories of the future" or something similar. (2016-11-10)