Arrival

Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker are the names boasted on the cover. A story about an alien invasion, haven't we heard it all before? Why is this film different? Simple, because it's not really about an alien invasion. Instead of just opening fire on everything and everyone the world's military organisations stop to think about it, try to communicate with them and get translators in to help them with all of this.

It felt quite a short film. moving nicely along but without too much action to be noted. It's a sci-fi film, not an action film and most of the film is spent either inside the army base in Montana or in the Alien pod teaching them how to understand human speech and teaching themselves how to work out what the alien writing language is. The twist to the film that I didn't see coming and sort of imagine that no one saw coming was spectacular. You think that you are watching a film about something so obvious but when you finally discover why the aliens are here it is something of a shock (in a nice way).

You're almost there, the finish line is in sight and you are just waiting for the expected ending. No cheesy lines or romcom like feel to it until that awful ending line- they just couldn't resist it. I don't know of anyone who would approach a woman that they have no previous relationship with other than a working relationship for about 2-3 months who would hug someone after saving the world and say 'Do you wanna make a baby?' That is just a terrible line and they had done so well to avoid any sort of predictable yet mushy, vomit inducing relationship that seemed like an obvious plot. They had managed to create this idea that men and women can work together even on something as important as saving the world without sleeping together or getting married but then they ruined it searching for that happy ending.

Not everything does have a happy ending so not every film should have a happy ending. It is okay to show the pains of the world and saving the world and the day can be enough of a happy ending. Take nothing away from Amy Adams, in the clips of her being a mother she was entirely convincing and quite surprising. Having seen her in 'Sunshine Cleaning' it was hard to imagine her as a mother or really as someone who could be in a decent, stable relationship with anyone but a decade has passed since that film, she has become Lois Lane and has become more mature and more of a strong maternal figure than expected. Emphasis on the 'strong' because her character is strong, not crying out for help, she can carry the weight of the world until her death without falling down and calling for Strider all the time.

Great film, very memorable but not a film to be watched on loop.