Words Over Weapons: ‘Arrival’ opens doors to new worlds of connection for language, experience

By Lilah Skaar

“Arrival”, directed by Denis Villeneuve featuring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker is an absolutely breathtaking movie with amazing visuals.

The movie is about aliens coming to earth in these very large, very jaw dropping so called space ships. The government/military wants to speak to these foreigners but lacks the knowledge to communicate with them. They call in Amy Adam’s character who specializes in the study of language and Jeremy Renner’s character who is a physicist.

The big point of the movie seemed to be the question: Why are they here? What do they want? But it more focuses on the character played by Amy Adams and her character development.

If you go into this movie expecting “Independence Day,” you will be let down. It’s not that the aliens are invading and now we’re going to war. It’s focus is more on science and language, trying to understand this very new form of communication.

The movie is a bit slow, which is good if you go into it expecting a tense and scientific film instead of a fast-paced action movie. That’s not what it is.

One thing I like about this film is that it has a twist within it. It leads`you to believe one thing, but it’s actually the total opposite. I’m trying not to spoil anything because you really need to go in blind to get the full experience of the movie.

The acting was really great with an especially fantastic performance by Adams, but I feel like Renner’s character was a little bland or not very important to the plot. The only reason the character was there was pretty much just to further the plot of Adam’s character.

But it was amazing definitely one of my favorite movies I’ve seen in awhile. The visuals are fantastic along with the acting. You can’t go into this movie hoping for action. It’s slow-paced and scientific. Definitely would recommend.