Arrival

               

Nothing prepared me for what a sack of shit Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, a freaking Best Picture nominee, is. Boring, mopey, wan, a Close Encounters for the MDD generation. Amy Adams is a linguist who has lost a daughter to cancer and is, apparently, the only one in the US qualified to communicate with the aliens when their pod lands in Montana. Similar pods land elsewhere on earth and unconvincing chaos results.

Adams does her best to convey credulity and torment, but Villeneuve has left her stranded in a hackneyed scenario that resorts to time travel to save the day. Talents like Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker are similarly adrift in this very sub-Spielberg sci-fi outing. I thought Villeneuve's Sicario was overrated, but it seems like Greed compared to this nothing muffin. (3/29/17)

at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
  • Quick Takes, March 2025
    Mikey Madison Enough bouquets have been bestowed upon Sean Baker's Anora  that I am not going to belabor the point. The players are unif...
  • La Notte
    Monica Vitti I recently revisited Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte for the first time in about four decades   and felt that, as a piece...
  • Best of 1945
    They Were Expendable                                                                 John Ford Les Enfants du Paradis                       ...
  • Best of 1946
    Notorious                                                                          Alfred Hitchcock La Belle et la Bête                     ...
  • Best of 1943
    Day of Wrath                                                                        Carl Theodor Dryer Meshes in the Afternoon              ...