ARRIVAL

No Go
My main problem with the picture is that there doesn’t seem to be an inherent logic to the story line. Linguist Louise Brooks (Amy Adams) makes significant inroads into understanding an alien language configured in Rorschach-like circles, and as the viewer, we’re never really privy to how she managed to do it. The non-linear time element introduced into the story is quite bewildering as well, highlighted by Adams’ character placing a phone call to a Chinese general AFTER he showed her his phone number, sometime in the FUTURE! If I have to have it explained to me, then it doesn’t pass a basic test for telling a good story. Namely a picture with a solid beginning, middle and end.
Jeremy Renner plays a physicist who doesn’t do any physics, and he nicknames the two Calamari People we see Abbott & Costello. Although you can’t tell them apart, Abbott becomes my favorite character in the movie because he gets to die midway through and doesn’t have to suffer through the rest of the film. Lucky Abbott.
The book is out there, so if you really must – read, “The Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang.