Arrival

Tonight I saw Arrival, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.

Louise (Adams) is a language professor whose class is interrupted one day when news breaks that UFOs have landed in 12 locations around the world. There's one in the U.S. and it's hovering over Montana.

Because of her incredible capabilities as a linguist, Louise is soon recruited by the government to help them decipher the language of the aliens that arrived with the spacecraft. There she works with Ian (Renner), a scientist.

Instead of going on the attack, the U.S. and several of its allies decide to try to reason with the beings—to discover their purpose before jumping to conclusions. After what feels like weeks of decoding, some of the enemy countries have other ideas and jeopardize the relationship that's been built. Louise takes risks others aren't willing to take to get real answers.

To tell you anymore would be to spoil the film.

What I can tell you:

1) The pace is slow, even when the narrative is interesting.
2) Linguists have difficult jobs.
3) Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner are both wonderful actors, but sadly don't have a lot of chemistry here.
4) The movie falls just shy of getting preachy with its metaphors and messages.

It's entertaining, but not earth-shattering. Adams is always a pleasure to watch, even if it's amidst a haze of octopus-like goo.

And most importantly, we should always think before we act.

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