FILM REVIEW: Arrival

The movie Arrival was one of my most anticipated movies of this year, as the director Denis Villeneuve has previously helmed some of my favorite films: Incendies (2011), Prisoners (2013) and Sicario (2015).  I blogged about some of the trailers for the movie, which stars Forest Whitaker, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner and is based on an award-winning short story by Ted Chiang called "The Story of Your Life."

I saw it with a friend at the AMC Tysons Corner 16 in Northern Virginia opening weekend. The fact that the movie's source material is a novella is not surprising because in some sense it feels like there are a limited number of characters in the story, almost like a play. The main character is obviously Amy Adams who plays Louise Banks, a Prius-driving, professor of linguistics who it appears has recently(?) suffered the loss of a child after a long illness (these events are told in a prologue).

The movie really begins with the sudden arrival of a dozen egg-like spaceships, suspended in mid-air in various locations around the world. It turns out that the ship in North America is somewhere in Montana. Forest Whitaker's Colonel GT Weber shows up in Professor Banks' office soon afterwards and on the helicopter we meet Renner's Ian Donnelly, a theoretical physicist. Eventually, the three principals don the world's bulkiest hazmat suits to enter the alien ships and try to find out a way to communicate with our alien visitors in order to discover why the aliens have come to our planet and whether their intentions are peaceful or violent.

One of the memorable aspects of Arrival is the design of the ship and the aliens, which do not look like anything we have seen before, i.e. they really appear to be extra-terrestrial. In particular, the language and the manner in which the aliens communicate is so mind-bendingly original that it sets Arrival apart from other first-contact movies like Contact and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Some people have issues with the ending of Arrival but I thought this was the key point which elevated the film into one of the more thought-provoking cinematic experiences of the year. Some aspects of it were a surprise but there were some hints dropped at earlier points in the film which led me to make some conclusions before they were revealed in the narrative. Even though I was not surprised by the eventual twist at the end this did not diminish its emotional resonance with me.

Overall, Arrival is a brilliant, well-crafted depiction of first contact between humans and aliens which gets resolved in a way that reveals an existential question that confronts the viewer.

Title: Arrival.
Director: Denis Villeneuve.
Running Time: 1 hour, 51 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.
Release Date: November 11, 2016.
Viewing Date: November 13, 2016.

Writing: A+.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A+.
Impact: A.

Overall Grade: A/A+ (4.16/4.0).

WATCH: Final Trailer for Arrival (In Theaters 11/11)

Next week, Friday November 11th is when Arrival finally hits movie theaters! The other half and I will be in Arlington but I definitely intend to see it on opening day. The movie is helmed by one of my favorite directors Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario) and stars Oscar-nominated actors Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker. It's about the sudden arrival of aliens and the importance of communication.

WATCH: Trailer for Arrival Features Difficulty Of Intraspecies Communication

I"m very excited about the imminent arrival of Arrival, the new film by director Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario) starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker based (loosely) on an award-winning short story by Ted Chiang. Villeneuve has made some of my favorite films over the last decade (notwithstanding my constant fan-boy love for Christopher Nolan) and I'm thriller he is working in my favorite genre of science fiction for the first time.

In this "Common Ground" trailer, the difficulty of communicating with people who share common experiences but not a common language is depicted as a means of emphasizing the key point of the film which is about the arrival of aliens whom humanity needs to communicate with.

MOVIE REVIEW: Jason Bourne

The Bourne movies (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Legacy, Jason Bourne) are a guilty pleasure of mine. The Other Half and I went to see the latest one (which is the fifth in the franchise but only the fourth one to feature Matt Damon as the titular character). We mostly did so because The Bourne Ultimatum is really quite a good movie (Th Bourne Legacy, starring Jeremy Renner is not.) Also, director Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Supremacy) is back on board, so we said "why not?"

The cast is surprisingly good, with Oscar-winners Tommy Lee Jones (Men in Black,  No Country for Old Men) and Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, The Danish Girl) in addition to Vincent Cassell (Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve, Black Swan), Julia Stiles (The Bourne Ultimatum) and Riz Ahmed (HBO's The Night Of).

Sadly, the movie is not as good as its cast (59%/62% on rottentomatoes). I did not even recognize Vikander was the same actress who played the android in Ex Machina! (Maybe that's why she won an Oscar this year.) She was one of the best parts of the movie, and happily she has a huge role. Jones is playing the (cartoonishly corrupt) CIA Director and we find out more and more about the back story of Damon's Jason Bourne character. These are all fun and familiar aspects of a Bourne film.

However, it really was not a particular enjoyable cinematic experience. Greengrass is a kinetic, exciting director and it was this energetic style which brought him acclaim in his helming of the earlier films in the Bourne franchise. But, here it just seems frenetic and motion sickness-inducing. One aspect of Greengrass's direction which I did appreciate was that the final cut of scenes that were depicted in the trailer (like Damon knocking down a guy with one solid punch with his left hand and the scene where the CIA realizes that Bourne is back: "My god that's Jason Bourne!") are slightly (but noticeably) different. In other words, the best parts of the film which are sometimes given away in the trailer as an inducement to get the audience to fork over their cash to see the entire film, this time were still fresh. I'm sure Greengrass made this conscious decision and I appreciated it.

That being said, despite one of the most harrowing car chases ever put on film (take THAT, The French Connection) it is doubtful that Jason Bourne will be remembered as a success despite doing (relatively) well at the box-office. I will certainly think twice about going to see the next Bourne in the theaters, but I would happily watch it on cable.

Title: Jason Bourne.
Director: Paul Greengrass.
Running Time: 123 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief strong language.
Release Date: July 29, 2016.
Viewing Date: August 7, 2016.

Writing: B+.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B-.

OVERALL GRADE: B/B+ (3.16/4.0)

FILM REVIEW: Mission Impossible Rogue Nation

The other half and I have been mostly M.I.A. regarding Hollywood's summer blockbusters (We have seen Inside Out and Jurassic World and that's about it). Actually, we haven't done a very good job of watching movies in the theater this year. This is primarily because we've grown increasingly picky about only seeing movies in the theater that have rottentomatoes ratings over 90%. However, one of the movies we did shlep out to the Edward's Renaissance 14 in Alhambra to see was Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation. It got such excellent reviews (90% from audience reviews and 93% from critics) that we felt we should definitely check it out. (It should be noted that just because a movie does got excellent reviews doesn't mean that we will go see it. After all, Mad Max: Fury Road had a 97% rating from critics and 88% from the audience but we received word-of-mouth reviews from friends who had seen the film that ultimately influenced us not to see it in the theater.)

Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation opens with an incredible sequence where apparently Tom Cruise did his own stunt while holding on to the outside of a huge cargo plane while it took off. It's quite an astonishing sight to see one of the most famous people in the world and the star of the film clearly risking his life to make the film even more compelling.

As usual for most of these films, the plot itself is basically irrelevant. The enjoyment of the film is in its clever execution of multiple "impossible" sequence one after the other, with some leavening of humor expertly applied by Simon Pegg (Star Trek Into Darkness, Shawn of the Dead). Other standouts in the cast are Rebecca Ferguson as the enigmatic Ilsa Faust, who aligns herself with Cruise's Evan Hunt and claims that she is a double agent, but is she possibly a triple agent?

Overall, the film is a fun diversion and well worth the time and money spent to enjoy it in the theaters.


Title: Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation.
Director: Christopher McQuarrie.
Running Time: 2 hours, 11 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, and brief partial nudity.
Release Date: July 31, 2015.
Viewing Date: August 23, 2015.

Writing: B.
Acting: B.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: B-.

Overall Grade: B (3.0/4.0).

FILM REVIEW: American Hustle

The other half and I saw  American Hustle, the new film from director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter), a couple of days after Christmas. American Hustle brings together Silver Linings Playbook co-stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper along with Christian Bale and Amy Adams.

However, this time the story is a fictional take on the famous Abscam scandal of the 1970s where numerous political figures were caught on tape taking bribes and sent to prison for corruption. The story revolves around a con man named Irving Rosenfeld (played by a near-unrecognizable Bale) and the love-of-his-life Sydney Prosser (played by Adams), who has a killer fake British accent. Lawrence plays Irving's estranged wife (and mother of his son) with extreme Jersey flair. Irving and Sydney try to scam the wrong person (an FBI agent named Richie DiMaso played by Cooper who has a ridiculously curly head of hair) and end up beholden to the FBI. Cooper basically coerces Irving and Sydney to run a scam that will net atleast 4 arrests in order to be convinced to not press charges against them. Their first target is Mayor Carmine Polito (played by Jeremy Renner) who is convinced by Irving to use his political connections to facilitate investments to refurbish and redevelop Atlantic City. Hilarity ensues.

The script is clever, and Russell's pacing is designed so that the suspense builds as Irving and Sydney get themselves deeper and deeper entangled with more powerful (and more dangerous) individuals, much to the delight of the FBI's DiMaso, who is hoping to advance in his career by arresting "big fish."

At its heart, American Hustle is a caper film, as well as a love story. Both aspects are well-executed and this makes the film-going experience quite enjoyable. The ensemble cast works well together with no one member standing out more than any other. Russell is well-known for the work he does with actors and this is true here, with Lawrence, Bale, Adams, Cooper and Renner doing some of their best work.

Title: American Hustle.
Director: David O. Russell.
Running Time: 2 hours, 18 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence.
Release Date: December 20, 2013.
Viewing Date: December 27, 2013.

Writing: A.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: A/A- (3.83/4.0).