movie review arrival rotten tomatoes

Much has been written about the recent surge of personal stories being told through the horror genre in films like “ It Follows ,” “ The Witch ” and “ The Babadook ,” but there’s an equally interesting trend in the science fiction genre as well. Over the last few years, we’ve seen the genre used not only to examine the power of space travel or a post-apocalyptic future but as a way to address common humanity more than futuristic adventure stories. Joining films like “ Gravity ,” “ Interstellar ” and “ The Martian ” is Denis Villeneuve ’s ambitious and moving “Arrival,” a movie that’s about the day the universe changed forever but becomes more focused on a single story even as it’s expanding its worldwide narrative. It is more about grief, time, communication and compassion than it is warp speed, and it’s a film that asks questions. How do we approach that which terrifies us? Why is it important to communicate through language and not action? The final act of “Arrival” gets to the big ideas of life that I won’t spoil here, but viewers should know that Villeneuve’s film is not the crowdpleaser of “The Martian,” Ridley Scott ’s big TIFF premiere last year. It’s a movie designed to simultaneously challenge viewers, move them and get them talking. For the most part, it succeeds.

Amy Adams gives a confident, affecting performance as Louise, a linguistics expert brought in on the day that 12 unidentified flying objects enter Earth’s orbit. Despite what they’re telling the public—which is not much of anything at first—the governments of the world have made first contact with the creatures inside, beings that look vaguely like some higher power merged an octopus with a giant hand. Working with the military and a scientist named Ian ( Jeremy Renner ), Louise seeks to find the answer to a very simple question: What do you want? The Heptapods, as they’re eventually called, speak in sounds that echo whale noises at times, but Louise quickly learns that written language is the way to communicate, even deciphering the complex way the interstellar tourists write. As she gets closer and closer to being able to convey that crucial question in a way that it (and its answer) will be understood, the world’s uneasiness continues. Will man’s protective instinct kick in before its science and language leaders can figure out a way to stop it?

Louise also has darkness in her life. The opening scenes detail the birth, brief life and death of a child. Throughout, Adams imbues Louise with a quiet, effective emotional undercurrent that’s essential to the film’s success. This is a movie that gets too sterile at times, but Adams is always there to ground it. Villeneuve’s vision is not particularly CGI-heavy, allowing Adams to work in a way that feels relatable. There’s so much going on in this character’s mind and heart, especially in the twisty final act, with which Adams could have “gone big,” but it’s actually one of the more subtle and internal sci-fi movie performances that I’ve ever seen. And it’s a testament to the success of “Arrival” that it’s her face—not the impressive alien ship/creature design—that people will remember.

As he has recently, Villeneuve understands the importance of surrounding himself with talented people. In this case, two of the film’s undeniable MVPs are cinematographer Bradford Young , the genius who shot “ Selma ” and “ A Most Violent Year ” and composer Jóhann Jóhannsson . The latter’s compositions here are essential to every emotional beat of the film, defining the air of tension in the first half of the film and the moving undercurrents of the final act. Young’s approach is beautifully tactile, using the natural world to make this unnatural story genuine. We may not be able to fully relate to Louise’s narrative, but we can appreciate the image of a child running through a field. Young’s imagery is fluid, unlike the choppy blockbuster cinematography that we’re used to seeing in sci-fi. Most importantly, it feels like everything here is of one vision—cinematography, direction, acting, score, etc.—instead of the factory-produced blockbusters we’ve seen of late.

Despite all of that, “Arrival” sags a bit in the middle, a point when it may lose some viewers for good. The “first contact” act is undeniably confident and the final thematically purposeful scenes of the film are stunningly ambitious, but the pace of “Arrival” softens a bit too much in the middle and one notices the sterility of the piece overall. Without spoiling anything, maintaining the shock value of the twists of the final act forces some narrative decisions in the mid-section that keep us observers to the action of the film when we’re ready to be participants. Villeneuve is a talented director, but this movie lacks a degree of heat that would have helped it hit the emotional and philosophical beats of the final scenes. As is, we often feel like we’re behind the barrier that Louise uses when communicating with the alien creatures she dubs Abbott and Costello. Like she wants to do, we so want to take off the equipment and get behind that screen. 

Having said that, this is ambitious, accomplished filmmaking that deserves an audience. It’s a film that forces viewers to reconsider that which makes us truly human, and the impact of grief on that timeline of existence. At its best, and largely through Adams’ performance, the film proposes that we’ve all had those days in which communication breaks down and fear over the unknown sets in. And it is the best of us who persevere, get up from being knocked down and repair that which is broken.

This review originally ran as a part of our Toronto International Film Festival coverage on September 10, 2016.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• Michael Stuhlbarg as Agent Halpern
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• Tzi Ma as General Shang
• Amy Adams as Dr. Louise Banks
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• Denis Villeneuve
• Eric Heisserer
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Linguist Louise Banks leads a team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must find a way to ... Read all Linguist Louise Banks leads a team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Linguist Louise Banks leads a team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors.

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• Trivia Director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Eric Heisserer created a fully functioning, visual, alien language. Heisserer, Villeneuve, and their teams managed to create a "logogram bible", which included over a hundred different, completely operative logograms, seventy-one of which are actually used in the movie.
• Goofs In the main landings chart, the Australian contact point seems to be in the Indian Ocean off Geralton in Western Australia. Later, there is a brief shot of an alien spacecraft with central Sydney in the distance across water; Sydney is on Australia's east coast.

Louise Banks : But now I'm not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived.

• Crazy credits Denis Villeneuve 's daughter, Salomé Villeneuve , is listed as "Hazmat Suit Specialist".
• Connections Featured in The Graham Norton Show: Amy Adams/Jeremy Renner/Chris O'Dowd/Niall Horan (2016)
• Soundtracks On the Nature of Daylight Written and Performed by Max Richter Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

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• November 11, 2016 (United States)
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• $47,000,000 (estimated)
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I Watched Arrival For The First Time, And The Ending Broke My Brain

Arrival really blew me away!

I’ve been told time and time again that Arrival is a masterpiece, and it’s one of the best sci-fi movies of all time . I have absolutely no reason for waiting seven years to watch this film. I love Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner . Denis Villeneuve also blew me away with Dune . I knew I’d like this movie, and I did, I adored it. What I wasn’t expecting was for the ending to break my brain, but I’m so happy it did, and we have to discuss it. 

What Happened At The End Of Arrival

Basically, the end of Arrival reveals that the alien’s language makes it so time is not linear, and you can see the future, or at least that’s how I understood it. There’s a pivotal scene in the movie after one of the aliens dies saving Louise and Ian, where Amy Adams ’ character goes back to talk to the surviving creature. It reveals to her that they came to Earth to give the gift of time, or the ability to see into the future. This realization completely flipped my understanding of what I was watching on its head.

For the entire movie, we’re led to believe that Louise has taken this mission to translate an alien language after she lost her daughter. I was viewing the film from her perspective with an air of grief to it. However, this turned out to not be the case at all. What I assumed were flashbacks were actually flashforwards. 

With this new knowledge, Louise uses it to figure out the information needed to convince a Chinese general to stand down, and she essentially stops a world war from breaking out. This all happened because she looked into the future to find an answer to a question the general gave her at a party long after the war ended. 

After the mission and Louise coming to the realization that the aliens’ language allows her to see the future, these moments we’ve already seen start to become reality. We also realize that Louise knew about her daughter Hannah’s fate, which is that she’d die of a terminal illness at a young age. We also learn that Jeremy Renner ’s character, Ian, is Hannah’s dad who leaves them. 

The movie ends at the start of Ian and Louise’s romantic relationship, with her knowing exactly how it will end. 

Why My Brain Broke Watching Arrival 

When I tell you I audibly gasped when I realized what the aliens’ gift was, I genuinely mean it. My mind was literally blown. My brain broke. I was in awe. Arrival deserved its rave reviews , and there are great reasons why it’s a sci-fi movie with over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes (it’s sitting at 94% to be exact). 

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The moment I found out Louise could see into the future, and that her daughter was not in the past, it made me rethink literally everything. Much like how humanity had to re-examine their reality when the aliens landed on Earth in this movie, I was left contemplating life, love and time. 

As a fan of Villeneuve, I was obviously here for the gorgeous sci-fi landscape he created, and the grand, yet simple, message about the power of open communication he was delivering. However, the ending will live in my brain rent-free forever, and it’s what solidified this film as a masterpiece. 

I love films that mess with our perception of reality and subvert our expectations. It’s not easy to pull this off, and it’s especially hard to both pull off a plot twist and have it add even more meaning to the film. Watching Arrival reminded me of the first time I watched Interstellar . While they’re both massive grandiose sci-fi flicks with twists that are mind-boggling, they’re also intimate commentaries on the importance of family and the power of communication, as cheesy as that may sound. It was having that realization mixed with comprehending the aliens’ gift and language that broke my brain. 

How Arrival Subverted All My Sci-Fi Expectations 

Looking back at critics' reactions to Arrival it’s clear that it floored them upon first watch, much like how it blew me away. I think one of the major reasons for that is how it subverts sci-fi expectations, especially with the point it hammers home at the end. 

When I think about sci-fi, my brain goes to big action movies that take place in space. That view has changed over the years as I’ve watched films like Dune and Interstellar . However, Arrival was the film that really made me reconsider my view on the genre, and this shift in my understanding of it contributed to how mind-blown I was at the end of the film. 

Aliens and a spaceship are central to this story, yes. However, the primary plot point has to do with two parties simply trying to figure out how to communicate with one another. I’ve always been told that at its core, sci-fi can speak to what’s going on in our own lives, and Arrival did exactly that. 

Thinking about how our world could be better if we kept lines of communication open, took our time and didn’t jump to conclusions is so valuable. Denis Villeneuve was able to clearly illustrate that point through a movie that happened to involve two massive aliens, a really cool spaceship and a plot twist involving seeing into the future. 

The Greater Meaning Behind The Ending Of Arrival And Its Message About Communication

As I’ve noted throughout this article, at its heart, Arrival is a story about communication. What ends up saving humanity is Louise figuring out how to speak the aliens’ language, her realization about how they perceive time, and a phone call that makes it so the lines of communication between the nations are reopened. There was no big battle, instead, it was the sharing of valuable information that led to the conflict’s resolution. 

That alone was mind-boggling and moving. However, what truly broke me was when Amy Adams’ character told her daughter:

I told him something he wasn’t ready to hear.

That’s when I fully realized Ian was Hannah’s dad, and that these two stories were not linear, but rather more cyclical. 

What ended up dooming their relationship was the withholding of information and the lack of communication. So, when Louise actually told Ian that she knew what would happen, presumably to their daughter, he left. This commentary on human nature and how fallible we are was deeply moving. Coming to that realization, along with taking in all the other elements of Arrival’s ending, especially the seeing the future aspect, is what truly led to my brain being broken as the credits rolled. 

Overall, Arrival is a masterclass in sci-fi and just great storytelling in general. Not only did the cast and crew of this film deliver a thrilling space-based movie, but they also created a profound commentary on the human condition and communication. In the end, it blew my mind, and I’ve been thinking about the film ever since I finished it. 

You can stream Arrival , and pick apart its incredible ending for yourself with a Paramount+ subscription or a Netflix subscription . 

Riley Utley is the Weekend Editor at CinemaBlend. She has written for national publications as well as daily and alt-weekly newspapers in Spokane, Washington, Syracuse, New York and Charleston, South Carolina. She graduated with her master’s degree in arts journalism and communications from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Since joining the CB team she has covered numerous TV shows and movies -- including her personal favorite shows  Ted Lasso  and  The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . She also has followed and consistently written about everything from Taylor Swift to  Fire Country , and she's enjoyed every second of it.

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Arrival review: a soulful sci-fi instant classic

Director denis villeneuve successfully merges hard sci-fi and real emotion in one of the best films of the year.

By Bryan Bishop

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Early on in Denis Villeneuve’s new film Arrival , it becomes pretty clear that for an alien-invasion movie, it’s actually not all that interested in aliens. As 12 mysterious spacecraft land in different locations around Earth, we see college students getting texted with the news, newscasters describing it, and a linguistics expert played by Amy Adams taking it all in — but we don’t see the ships themselves. Humanity’s reaction is what’s important, and it’s only after the film has slowly, methodically established its priorities that the ships — or "shells," as they’re dubbed — are revealed.

It sets the tone for what’s to come: a mature, thoughtful piece of science fiction that uses a first-contact premise not just as a setup for a doomsday scenario, but as a platform for an incredibly powerful, nuanced look at love, relationships, and the human condition itself. If big-screen science fiction has been going through a maturation process over the past few years, searching for a truly genre-defining moment, it has finally arrived.

Warning: minor spoilers ahead

The films opens as Dr. Louise Banks (Adams) struggles with the death of her teenage daughter, trying to find solace in her daily routine. That process is suddenly interrupted when the 12 shells appear on Earth and the U.S. military comes asking for her help. It turns out they’ve been able to establish some minimal contact with the alien creatures in the shells, but their language is unlike anything known to man. Joining forces with a theoretical physicist named Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Banks goes inside the ship and meets the aliens face-to-tentacle, and slowly starts learning their language and teaching them ours. She’s convinced their intentions are good, but with shells located all around the globe, other countries are having their own interactions, and soon Banks is trying to uncover the reason behind the visit before China or Russia kick off a war with the aliens.

Accessible without ever shying away from the science in sci-fi

That’s the most broad, generic description of the film I can possibly provide, and that’s where I’m going to leave it, because Arrival is a film that’s not so much built up out of plot points and story beats as it's built from emotional and character turns. Adapted from Ted Chiang’s short story "Story of Your Life," Arrival doesn’t flinch when it comes to serious discussion of linguistics, math, or the complex semagrams the aliens use for their written language. But screenwriter Eric Heisserer ( Lights Out ) is remarkably deft in his ability to use those concepts in service of character and theme. The results feel remarkably accessible, even when Arrival is tackling dense concepts that would normally be verboten in a studio film.

Another huge component of that is Villeneuve's approach. The director has been steadily building a rich body of work with movies like Sicario and Prisoners , and working with cinematographer Bradford Young ( Ain’t Them Bodies Saints ) , he creates a beautiful world of cool, symmetrical compositions and ever-patient camera moves. It would be foolish to avoid the Kubrick comparisons — several shots when Banks and Donnelly first enter the alien ship read like direct callbacks to 2001: A Space Odyssey — but that trademarked sterility isn’t just artifice; it’s the nature of the world Villeneuve is creating here. Whether it’s Banks, Donnelly, or the head of the Chinese military, everyone is alone, and can’t find it within themselves to connect with one another, even in the face of world-changing circumstances.

The promise of overcoming that inability to communicate — not just with aliens, but with one another — is what lies at the heart of the film, and it’s an idea that’s brought forward most directly by Amy Adams' performance. She's played a variety of roles covering a range of colors, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her so raw and emotionally compelling. Watching her struggle with the alien language, driven by memories of her daughter, is like mainlining empathy, pushing the film toward a crescendo of an ending that is quietly triumphant and heart-wrenching.

Watching Amy Adams' performance is like mainlining empathy

The funny thing is that we’ve seen swings at this kind of thing before — and more recently than you might think. In 2014, Interstellar launched with the ambitious mission of using a hard sci-fi story to explore the notions of legacy and sacrifice between a father and a daughter. With the talent of Christopher Nolan, a lead actor at peak McConaissance, and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne all on board, expectations were understandably high. While the end result was lovingly rendered, ultimately it fell short — and it wasn’t because the film’s puzzle-like construction or loop-around ending were too convoluted.

It failed because it didn’t resonate emotionally. Interstellar leaves all its grand themes and ambitions inert and lifeless. Arrival 's extraordinary success is that it combines its bravura style and grand science-fiction questions with tremendous emotional intelligence and a heart so full, it’s ready to burst. It’s a film that dares us to look ahead, to open ourselves up to vulnerability and sacrifice, and to take chances and engage with the world around us, no matter what dire consequences we fear may be just around the corner. That transcends genre, or even medium. It is simply art, and at a time when so many seem intent on walling off themselves or their countries, it’s exactly what we need.

This review originally appeared on September 10, 2016 in conjunction with the film's screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival. It has been republished to coincide with the film's wide theatrical opening.

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'Arrival' Review: Decoding a New Visual Language

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[Note: This is a re-post of our review from the Telluride Film Festival;  Arrival  opens in theaters this week].

Denis Villeneuve  ( Sicario, Prisoners ), to this point, has been a frustrating director for me. Frustrating because his films have always shown a delicate craftsmanship, but the final product never coalesced into a film that was equal to the visuals, score and pacing that Villeneuve had shown complete mastery of. Prisoners ' eloquent visuals colored suspicion in every corner of a suburban street but was undid by a script that over-relied on red herrings.  Sicario   couldn't commit to its vantage point of a bewildered DEA agent and instead switched to the hitman at the climactic point for tidy answers. In these films (and in his Canadian productions), Villeneuve was a director that I knew would eventually make a film that would floor me. He obviously had all the tools, but his visual construction was beyond the texts he was working with. Fittingly, with  Arrival , a film all about language between alien species and worldwide miscommunication, Villeneuve has free reign to decode an entire universe of language with visuals. And it's a monolithic achievement.

Arrival  is a spiral helix of information, but to keep that looping staircase a surprise this write-up will barely engage with plot. And despite how intricate the story feels during its runtime, its ultimately a film that will require multiple viewings. But the visual poetry will pull you through into an exciting, brave new world of ideas about global construction, and the Tower of Babel that has kept us from perfecting a worldwide construction. And perhaps keeps us from being capable (right now) of engaging with another civilization.

In basic terms, 12 black, oval alien pods appear one day in 12 distinctly different parts of Earth. In the USA, it's a field in Montana. Others appear above the Black Sea, in Shanghai, Denmark, etc. The world, for the first time, attempts to work together in direct communication about this event. A feed is set up with scientists and armies all around the world to share information that they are receiving from these alien pods. In Montana, an army colonel ( Forest Whitaker ) recruits a renowned linguist, Dr. Louise Brooks ( Amy Adams ) to attempt to teach the two black heptapods constructs of English to be able to ask them their intentions on Earth and decode their language. Dr. Brooks shows more bravery in making direct contact with the beings (separated by a communication wall on their ship) than any of the armed men who keep a safe distance. Eventually a scientist, Ian Donnelly ( Jeremy Renner ), joins her in direct contact, thus forming a duo of communication to the dual beings.

In an early scene, the Colonel chooses Dr. Brooks as the proper linguist because she has a more thorough definition of "war" from sanskrit than a colleague of hers. Her contemporary translates the Hindu word as "an argument", and she offers the more complex (and correct) definition as "a desire for more cows". This is extremely important because as each country begins decoding the aliens' language, each country interprets the alien messages differently. Some see specific words as a threat, some as a gift, and as the governments begin to disagree with the meanings of these messages, different factions form, and some go offline from global communication completely. Our inability to communicate efficiently on a global scale creates a schism and the US base races to understand the beings before a domino effect begins from oppositional countries.

Villeneuve and screenwriter  Eric Heisserer  very wisely include how communication off base—via news and telephone calls to loved ones—further disrupt patience on base. Patience is key for the film as well. Anyone expecting major actions might be disappointed, but anyone ready to unpack major ideas will be thrilled.  Arrival  is not a thrill ride, but it is perhaps the most necessary science fiction film of this decade. It involves modern concerns of a global disconnect the more connected we become. And it involves forward-thinking ideas of the concept of time and how our survival as a species might not come on the plane of existence that we've known for thousands of years.

For a film about language, Villeneuve smartly relies most on the cinematic language: cinematography, production design, visual effects and musical scoring. His collaborators flex some of the best work of the year in every cinematic realm. The interior of the pod is influenced by the lighting space of a famous  James Turrell  piece, except instead of shifting color gradients from warm to cool, it is a constant black and white. The heptapods emerge from a fog and communicate with ink that emits from their long legs, and this stylistic choice of being allows for the visual effects to play with liquid and cloudy elements to keep the aliens just enough in the foreground to look incredibly real.

Cinematographer  Bradford Young gets to go handheld, up close and personal for Terrence Malick-inspired views from Dr. Brooks' memory and the intimacy in this motif provides many visual clues that will aide her language decoding pursuits (and break your heart). And frequent Villeneuve scoring collaborator, Johann Johansson , creates a chilly atmosphere without making us scared. In fact, every area of  Arrival , from the main actors to the crews mentioned above, work exquisitely together to maintain an atmosphere of constant discovery instead of dread and fear.

The maintained feeling of discovery is where Villeneuve deserves so much applause. Arrival  is very exciting because it is a sci-fi about ideas and interpersonal communication. Even when it engages with a type of conflict that we're familiar with, Villeneuve only uses sound and a detached viewing from above. We are so attached to the researchers and their methods, we want them to be able to do all their work devoid of violent conflict.

Arrival  makes us care about each discovery and less about what conflict might impede it. It's truly a game-changer for modern science fiction.

Arrival opens nationwide on November 11, 2016.

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Arrival, film review: Finally a sci-fi thriller that doesn’t rely on action movie clichés

Amy adams carries denis villeneuve's cerebal and contemplative hit, article bookmarked.

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Denis Villeneuve is currently working on the next Blade Runner movie starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. His new film Arrival (a premiere in Venice this week) is also a sci-fi movie, albeit a very cerebral and contemplative one. The film, based on cult sci-fi yarn Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang, starts with a War of the Worlds -style alien invasion. Its plot, though,turns out to be more preoccupied with linguistics, philosophy and non-linear time than with humans in boiler suits zapping the creatures from outer space.

The main protagonist Dr Lousie Banks ( Amy Adams ) is a brilliant academic. In a deliberately dream-like and confusing prelude which stands as a mini-movie in its own right, we see a montage of incidents from her life with her beloved daughter. Back in the present, she is teaching in a sparsely attended lecture hall when one of her students makes her turn on the new channel on TV. A dozen oval spaced alien spaceships have arrived on earth. They’re hovering everywhere from Devon to the Black Sea. World leaders have no idea whether the spaceships have come in peace or with murderous intentions. Louise is recruited by the military authorities alongside scientist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to try to communicate with the visitors.

The film is fascinating in its own slow-burning way as it depicts Louise’s painstaking efforts to come up with a set of language conventions that the aliens can understand. The “heptapods” are spidery creatures with starfish-shaped hands who communicate through their own incredibly complex form of hieroglyphs. They create inky patterns of circles and symbols that look elements from Jackson Pollock paintings. A jarring, minimalist score by Johann Johannsson adds to the general eeriness.

This is one sci-fi movie in which there is no attempt whatsoever to anthopomorphise the aliens. They’re not like humans. Louise is patient and dogged in her attempts to understand them but she has no time. Across the world, everywhere from China to Russia to Sudan, military forces are gathering, ready to try to blast the aliens back to the galaxy whence they came. In the wake of their arrival, the stock market has collapsed, looting is widespread and there is a very real danger that the superpowers, instead of joining forces to deal with their new visitors, will soon turn their weaponry on each other.

Amy Adams is a very versatile actress, equally adept at playing con artists and ingenues; in appearing in screwball comedy and in very dark drama. Here, she is utterly credible as the academic so passionate about her work that she hardly seems to notice that Armageddon may be nigh. This is a Hollywood movie in which semantics matter. The difference between “weapon” and “tool” is crucial for the future of humankind.

Villeneuve has assembled a strong supporting cast. Forest Whitaker is a furrowed-browed, no-nonsense US military Colonel, trying to get Louise to hurry up and crack the code that will enable her to understand the Heptapod language. Michael Stuhlbarg is the vaguely sinister intelligence chief type, ready to turn against Louise if he even suspects that she is compromising national security. They, and Renner’s scientist, are all subservient to Adams, who carries the movie.

Occasionally, when characters breathlessly utter lines about language and time being “not the same” for the aliens or we’re suddenly whisked into the past or future, the film can seem a little silly. It’s heartening, though, to encounter a science fiction thriller that is ready to deal with abstract ideas and that doesn’t rely on the slightest on action movie clichés.

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‘Arrival’ review

See 'arrival' for the alien-invasion, but leave with much, much more.

Sometimes a movie comes out of nowhere and turns out to be so unlike anything you expected that you’re left wondering whether the experience was something uniquely brilliant or an elaborate bit of bait-and-switch cinema.

That’s the sort of film that director Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi drama Arrival proves to be, and whether it falls into the former category or the latter will likely depend on what audiences come into the theater expecting from it – and how rigidly they hold to those expectations. One thing is certain, however: Arrival is a movie unlike anything else we’ve been given in recent years.

Directed by the Sicario and Prisoners filmmaker from a script penned by Eric Heisserer ( Lights Out , The Thing ), Arrival is based on based on the award-winning 1998 short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. The film casts Amy Adams as prominent linguistics professor Louise Banks, who is called upon to find a way to communicate with the aliens inhabiting a group of strange spaceships that suddenly appeared in the sky at various points around Earth. She’s joined by a theoretical physics expert played by Jeremy Renner, and a senior military official played by Forest Whitaker, who supervises their interaction with the extraterrestrial visitors.

The initial previews for Arrival hinted that it was more than just your standard alien-invasion movie, but exactly how far it strays from that genre while still remaining firmly entrenched in its fantastic, sci-fi premise is one of many impressive feats the film pulls off.

Simultaneously exploring the philosophical quandaries of predestination, the complexities of linguistics, and the nature of time itself, Arrival layers some pretty deep subject matter over its basic genre foundation. And yet, the film does a surprisingly good job of conveying complicated concepts that blend into the narrative and rarely – if ever – feel forced.

Arrival is a movie unlike anything else we’ve been given in recent years.

For example, how Adams’ character approaches the task of establishing communication with lifeforms that don’t relay information the way humans do is handled in a way that’s both intelligently presented and fascinating to watch unfold on the screen.

Villeneuve has proven himself as a master of tone – both visually and through the use of music cues – and his talents are on full display in Arrival . The human characters’ first interaction with the aliens is a wonderfully crafted, slow-burn sequence that plays with classic movie tropes (and pays subtle homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey ) while introducing some entirely unexpected elements that make the well-worn “revealing the alien creature concealed in smoke behind the glass” scene feel fresh and surprising. Subsequent scenes featuring the aliens are handled just as well, with Villeneuve keeping the level of uncertainty about the creatures just as high as the tension, and making sure not to spoil them by giving too much away or maintain so much secrecy that the audience feels cheated.

It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his work, but Villeneuve also offers up some compelling moments with the human cast without any aliens, too.

The film has a relatively small cast of human characters – and an even smaller number of characters who actually spend any significant time on the screen – but Villeneuve certainly doesn’t waste any of the time or characters he’s given. The dialogue is efficient when it needs to be, conveying complicated concepts with surprising ease and not spending a second more than it needs to on developing certain relationships (adversarial or otherwise). This allows him to slow down and linger on the more emotional, dramatic moments that benefit from that extra attention the camera pays them.

Arrival earns the intense emotional response it asks from its audience.

In the film’s featured role, Adams does a remarkable job of adding depth to her character, and seems to find ways to make her linguistics expert feel like more than the typical academic. Her reaction to the aliens feels authentic to her character, and this – along with excellent performances from the supporting cast – contributes to Arrival feeling like a sci-fi movie that achieves far beyond the genre standard.

At a time when so many films that fall under the “science-fiction” banner forego the science for spectacle-driven fiction, Arrival offers the best of both worlds with a thought-provoking story that still manages to provide memorable, breathtaking visual moments. It also taps into the sort of emotions – and depths of emotion – that aren’t usually mined in sci-fi fare, and does so in a way that earns the intense emotional response it asks from its audience.

Easily one of the best sci-fi films of the year and certainly one of the most unique, Arrival is a reminder that the science-fiction genre is truly a wide-open field that can offer a little something for everyone and move you in powerful ways that remind you what it means to be human.

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Review: ‘Arrival’ is deeply human, expertly realized science fiction

Kenneth Turan reviews ‘Arrival’ directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma, and Mark O’Brien. Video by Jason H. Neubert.

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You can stop watching the skies.

They’re here.

Movies that begin with confounding aliens on the loose have been around for awhile (at least since 1951’s “Man From Planet X” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still”) and they invariably share a family resemblance even if the space visitors themselves never look the same way twice.

Where do these beings come from, baffled scientists and frightened government officials inevitably want to know. Are they friendly or hostile, what do they want from us and what are they doing here in the first place?

One of the most satisfying things about Denis Villeneuve’s elegant, involving “Arrival” is that it is simultaneously old and new, revisiting many of these alien-invasion conventions but with unexpected intelligence, visual style and heart.

Working from a smart and effective script by Eric Heisserer adapted from a cerebral short story by science-fiction luminary Ted Chiang, the French-Canadian director and his team have found ways to make these way-out-of-the-ordinary events seem plausible and convincing.

This cannot have been easy because Chiang’s story, though containing a splendid central idea, is a cool, scientific, even philosophical exploration of the nature of language and does completely without many of the plot specifics that make “Arrival” involving.

Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker star in “Arrival.”

Always an effective, if at times coolly manipulative director (“Sicario,” “Prisoners”), Villeneuve and his team have embraced the script and even found space for emotion. This is especially true in the film’s audacious conclusion, a moving, nervy reveal sure to spark lots of after-movie conversation.

In his success Villeneuve is helped considerably by the finely calibrated performance of star Amy Adams. Though the credits list her as one of a group of top actors including Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg, “Arrival” is really Adams’ film, a showcase for her ability to quietly and effectively meld intelligence, empathy and reserve.

Before we know anything else about her, we see Adams’ Louise Banks as a parent, enjoying the happiness and the sadness that can come with raising a child, her daughter Hannah. Chiang’s short story is titled “Story of Your Life,” and “Arrival” is similarly structured as a kind of message from mother to child.

Almost immediately, however, we cut to the chase. Banks is a professor of linguistics, but when she shows up to teach, her classroom is almost empty. A timely look at the television tells all: an ominous extraterrestrial spacecraft has landed in Montana and the country is freaking out.

Looking like the universe’s largest skipping stone, or a surfboard big enough to daunt Duke Kahanamoku, that spacecraft is one of 12 that have shown up at apparently random locations around the globe, including Venezuela, Siberia and China.

Banks thinks all this has nothing to do with her, but she’s wrong. Because she’s an ace linguist who already has security clearance, the Army’s all-business Col. Weber (a letter-perfect Whitaker) shows up at her door in need of help figuring out both how the aliens speak and what they are saying.

Whisked off to deepest Montana, Banks is joined by another scientist, top Los Alamos theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Renner), and Agent Halpern (Stuhlbarg), the inevitable watchful guy from the CIA.

Every 18 hours the alien craft opens and Banks and Donnelly and a support crew go in and confront the pair of aliens, who they nickname Abbott and Costello (a big improvement over the short story’s Flapper and Raspberry).

Banks’ mandate is double-edged: to learn as much of these creatures’ language as she can, while for security reasons, not revealing any more English to them than she needs to.

This process turns out to be a more fraught procedure than the linguist imagines, and not only because in the rest of the world everyone is acting on pure fear alone.

But for Banks, whose sessions with the aliens are punctuated by frequent visions of herself and her daughter, learning that alien tongue, as short-story writer Chiang puts it, “changes the way she understands her life.”

While Chiang’s story provides “Arrival’s” essential core concept, almost everything else is brought to the table by Villeneuve and his accomplished team, led by gifted cinematographer Bradford Young (“A Most Violent Year,” “Pawn Sacrifice,” “Selma”).

Almost taking as a challenge the familiar nature of alien movies, Villeneuve, Young, production designer Patrice Vermette and visual effects supervisor Louis Morin have taken it as a challenge to show us things from unexpected angles, keeping us off balance visually and emotionally in a very accomplished way.

Adams’ contribution is essential to this plan, especially when you realize that the story is in large part about the nature of language learning and linguistics. Her ability to create empathy and emotional connection, with the audience as well as the aliens, reminds us that the best and most effective science fiction is invariably deeply human at its core.

MPAA rating. PG-13 for scenes of science fiction violence and terror and for brief language.

Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes.

In general release.

Critic’s Choice. “Arrival.” Amy Adams stars in this elegant, involving science fiction drama that is simultaneously old and new, revisiting many alien invasion conventions but with unexpected intelligence, visual style and heart. - Kenneth Turan

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Denis Villeneuve of ‘Arrival’ Leans In to Strong Heroines

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By Cara Buckley

• Nov. 10, 2016

“Arrival,” the new aliens-have-landed film with Amy Adams (which opensFriday), is the first science-fiction picture directed by Denis Villeneuve, and, despite its ominous overtones and the heartbreak at its core, it also counts among Mr. Villeneuve’s lighter fare.

Mr. Villeneuve, who is French Canadian, is widely known for tense cinematic brooders like “Prisoners” and “Enemy,” which both starred Jake Gyllenhaal, and for being hired to direct the forthcoming, doubtlessly moody “Blade Runner” sequel, due next year and starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. Set against Mr. Villeneuve’s body of work, though, these three films are anomalies, for the simple fact that their protagonists are men.

Mr. Villeneuve has built and grown his career making films that are about, and led by, women. “Arrival” is his sixth feature to focus on a female character.

Part of this is happenstance, part of it by design, and part of it is ingrained in Mr. Villeneuve’s DNA. Writing his first feature in the late ’90s, Mr. Villeneuve said, he consciously chose a female protagonist because he felt it would bring him “the necessary distance” from his subject. But then his second feature centered on a woman, and then his third, and his fourth, around which time Mr. Villeneuve realized a definite pattern was afoot.

“For me, masculinity is about control, and femininity is more of an embrace, the art of listening,” Mr. Villeneuve, who is 49, said by phone from Budapest, where “Blade Runner 2049” was being shot. “It’s very inspiring to explore the shadows of masculinity and femininity, and the tensions between both, and the place of women in the world right now.”

Mr. Villeneuve was raised in Gentilly, Quebec, a small community northeast of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River that is famous for its nuclear power plant and, now, for being his hometown. While the village was deeply conservative and Catholic, Mr. Villeneuve grew up surrounded by strong, progressive women.

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The Epic Intimacy of Arrival

The alien-contact movie, starring Amy Adams and directed by Denis Villeneuve, is the best film of the year so far.

Arrival , the remarkable new film by Denis Villeneuve, begins aptly enough with an arrival—though perhaps not the kind you would expect. A baby is born, and her mother, played by Amy Adams, explains in voiceover, “I used to think to this was the beginning of your story.” We see the girl’s life, in flashback—games of cowboy, arguments, reconciliations—as her mother continues, “I remember moments in the middle ... and this was the end.” We see the girl, now a teenager, in a hospital bed. Then we see the bed empty.

The sequence—a brief life encompassed in still briefer summary—is surely among the most heartbreaking since Michael Giacchino’s magnificently versatile waltz carried us through the “ Married Life ” segment of Up . And while at first it appears to be mere backstory for Adams’s character, it is in fact much more, perhaps the most crucial thread in Villeneuve’s intricately woven film.

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Adams plays Dr. Louise Banks, a world-class linguist whom the Army once asked for help with a Farsi translation. “You made quick work of those insurgent videos,” a Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) reminds her; “you made quick work of those insurgents,” she rebuts. The Army needs her help once again, although this time the work is decidedly more esoteric: Aliens have arrived on Earth in a dozen giant craft scattered across the globe, one of them in the wilds of Montana. Colonel Weber would like Louise to come with him, learn the aliens’ language, and ask them why they’re here. On the flight into Big Sky Country, she is introduced to her partner in this endeavor, a genial physicist named Ian Donelly (Jeremy Renner, looking relieved that no one expects him to lug around a bow and quiver).

Villeneuve clearly knows his Godzilla , and like Ishiro Honda he takes his time before revealing his leviathan. As the chopper bearing the scientists skims over the plains, the alien craft emerges, literally, from the mist: a 1,500-foot edifice of what looks like black rock floating weightlessly just above the ground, like a giant skipping-stone poised on one tip.

Accompanied by soldiers and technicians, Louise and Ian enter the craft by means of a square shaft in its base. Once inside, however, gravity releases them and then shifts 90 degrees, such that the shaft is now a corridor and one of its walls the floor. It is a dizzying moment for Louise and Ian, and no less so for the audience, like when Fred Astaire danced his way up the wall in Royal Wedding . As Ian responded to the sudden inversion with “holy fuck,” I was right there with him.

At the end of the corridor they meet their hosts, two giant, squid-like beings that float on the other side of a transparent barrier. Louise and Ian call them “heptapods” owing to their seven symmetrical tentacles, and name the two “Abbott” and “Costello,” because, well, why not? Efforts at verbal communication are unsuccessful, but written language proves more promising. From their starfish-like hands, the heptapods can emit swirling circles of inky gas, each one of them—as Louise concludes—a fully formed sentence with neither beginning nor end. Communication with the creatures moves slowly, but it at least begins to move.

Like Villeneuve’s recent films Sicario and Prisoners , the movie is at once evocative and mysterious. As events unspool, we can sense that—like Louise with the heptapods—we do not entirely comprehend them. (We are correct in this.) As she and Ian try to decode the creatures’ language, they are constrained in their efforts by Colonel Weber and, especially, a CIA agent named Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg). Until we know more of the aliens’ intentions—conquest? tourism? cup of sugar?—Weber and Halpern are greatly concerned that we do not accidentally teach them more about ourselves than we learn about them.

Moreover, there are geopolitics to consider. Eleven other craft hover elsewhere on Earth: Shanghai, Siberia, Sudan, Sierre Leone, and even a few places not starting with “s.” What if China or Russia makes a breakthrough with the aliens first and uses what it learns against the United States? What if shots are fired, bringing alien wrath down upon the whole globe? Already their arrival has enveloped America in a sense of dread and anxiety not seen since—well, this entire political season. Looting breaks out in the cities; Pentecostals self-immolate; talk-radio tough guys demand “a show of force, a shot across their bows.”

The look of Arrival is stately and elegant; its pace, sober and deliberate. This is Villeneuve’s first collaboration with the cinematographer Bradford Young, who shot my two favorite films of 2014 in A Most Violent Year and Selma . The score, by the frequent Villeneuve contributor Jóhann Jóhannsson, is multifaceted and occasionally spellbinding, not least when its low horns boom with menace, almost like an alien voice themselves.

The script is by Eric Heisserer, who cunningly adapted and expanded it from a short story by Ted Chiang. It’s tempting to describe Arrival as “thinking person’s science fiction.” And while I will not descend to such hokey nomenclature, there’s a reason you’ll probably see that phrase plenty in conjunction with the film.

It would be a disservice to describe how the plot unfolds any further, as Villeneuve releases information gradually and viewers will likely clue into the film’s true meaning at different points in its evolution. Suffice to say that Arrival is a “twist” movie, but the twist is more than a mere gimmick. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento , it is central not only to the film’s narrative but also to its moral architecture—which, like Memento ’s, concerns itself with questions of time, memory, and human choice. This is precisely the kind of science-fiction movie, at once epic and intimate, that Interstellar tried (and failed ) to be.

The entire cast is strong, but Arrival is Adams’s movie from the first frame to the last. I confess that I initially thought that her gifts might be wasted on such space-invader fare, but the performance she gives is mesmerizingly open, by turns uplifting and sorrowful. If you are unmoved by the film’s conclusion, then you are made of considerably harder stuff than I.

As awards season gets under way, there are several promising movies visible hovering on the horizon. But for now, the best film of the year, ambitious in conception and extraordinary in execution, has arrived.

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'Arrival' Isn't Too Scary, In Spite Of The Aliens

It's not often that a science fiction movie comes along with as much critical acclaim as the new film Arrival . As of this writing, the movie has a perfect 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes after 60 reviews; with critics praising the film's philosophy, emotion, and the performance of star Amy Adams. But even though it may be a prestige film, at the end of the day it's still a movie about an alien invasion. So is Arrival scary ?

It probably depends on what you're afraid of. The movie is not meant to be a horror film by any means, and is instead meant to be thought-provoking. Of course, one thought the film provokes is that of a society of alien creatures far more advanced than we are showing up out of the blue with no indication of what they want. That is certainly a frightening idea, and since the movie portrays this scenario in such a believable way, it's possible you may come away a little rattled. There's also the alien creatures themselves, who are hideous-looking tentacled beasts that I would certainly rank among the scariest extraterrestrials ever put to film. E.T. they are not, that's for sure.

Given the seemingly juxtaposing genres of Arrival , the movie can be somewhat difficult to categorize. On the one hand, it's a deep, thinking person's sci-fi film in the vein of Interstellar or Contact , with overarching themes of time and linguistics; while on the other, it's a film about a worldwide alien invasion by tentacled creatures that wouldn't seem out of place in Independence Day . So which is it? Psychological sci-fi drama or big time alien spectacle?

The movie definitely trends more toward a smaller, intellectual film than it does a blockbuster actioner. Although the trailers put some emphasis on the world-ending potential of the aliens' arrival, the bulk of the film is far more personal, and mostly revolves around the effect that deciphering the aliens' complex dual language has on Adams' master linguist, Louise Banks . The film is based upon the Nebula Award-winning novella Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang , which is not a horror story in the slightest.

So is Arrival scary? If the mere idea of aliens visiting Earth terrifies you beyond belief, then yes, I suppose you'll be frightened by Arrival . But the movie certainly isn't meant to be scary, and its main purpose instead is to get you thinking. Whether the thoughts it conjures terrify you or not is ultimately up to you.

Images: Paramount Pictures

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Movie Review: Arrival (2016)

• Vincent Gaine
• Movie Reviews
• 10 responses
• --> November 19, 2016

From its opening shot of a house both sleek and warm to its transcendent finale, Arrival arrests attention with a grasp that is firm yet ephemeral. It is a sublime and profound experience, touching its audience on an emotional, intellectual and spiritual level, a film that declares both its originality and its ancestry.

And what ancestry! One of the great pleasures of science fiction is the interplay of repetition and variation, as science fiction cinema (as well as literature and television) reworks and reformulates elements of earlier films. Viewers can identify these elements and enjoy the new film’s interpretation, thus perpetuating a dialogue between filmmakers, films and audiences, each group responding to each other and exchanging with the other parties.

Dialogue, communication and exchange are indeed central to Arrival , Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction drama about first contact between humans and extra-terrestrials. Through careful focus on the experiences of linguist Doctor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and theoretical physicist Doctor Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), with anxious oversight from Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker, “ Southpaw ”), Arrival creates a tangible and plausible vision of the pitfalls and possibilities of a truly alien encounter. While the giant looming spacecraft might echo “Independence Day,” Arrival more closely recalls “Contact,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Solaris” and “Monsters.” Crucially, however, Arrival also stamps out its own territory perfectly. After the grim crime thrillers “ Prisoners ” and “ Sicario ,” Villeneuve exceeds his previous achievements to prove himself one of the most exciting directors working today, as comfortable with wide scale epic scenes as he is with intimate moments of human memory and interaction. From the early establishment of tragic events (that recall Pixar’s “ Up ”) to immense moments of global importance, Arrival never puts a foot wrong in its portrayal of a close encounter of the profound kind.

The film’s success is testament to the balance of its various elements. Eric Heisserer’s script is a smart and subtle beast, delicately interweaving character, plot and theme in such a way that no one aspect overshadows the others. Editor Joe Walker cuts with precision between different time frames that inform each other carefully. Production designer Patrice Vermette crafts evocative locations both earthly and unearthly, the interior of the alien vessel an exercise in the uncanny. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score shifts from quiet and subtle to boomingly bombastic when the scene calls for it. If there is anything missing from the film, it is the extraordinary cinematography that Roger Deakins brought to “Prisoners” and “Sicario,” but Bradford Young’s cinematography conveys a sense of “dirty sci-fi.” Grit, grime and fog obscure the light which gives the film earthiness and texture, allowing the viewer to feel both grounded and alienated, much like the characters.

As the major characters, the central actors give a convincing and distinct range of responses to an extraordinary situation. Whitaker delivers a performance far beyond a military stereotype, concerned with alien intentions but without bullishness or overt aggression. Renner demonstrates range beyond his tough guy roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “ The Town ” and “ The Hurt Locker ,” his skepticism and purely mathematical understanding softening as he comes to understand the linguistic approach. As the film’s center and rarely off screen, Adams is never less than mesmerizing and after “Junebug,” “ Doubt ,” “ The Fighter ,” “ The Master ” and “ American Hustle ,” she may well be on her way to a sixth nomination, and perhaps even a win. Whether Banks is countering Weber’s military expectations with linguistic realities, grappling with her own trauma or conveying a palatable sense of wonder and reverence, her arc is a beautiful and soulful journey towards understanding.

Indeed, understanding is central to the film. Banks must learn to understand the alien language and, pleasingly, attention is given to the painstaking team work of research, as both Banks and Donnelly have large teams to work on their findings. While there are generic moments of revelation, they feel earned because the film creates a sense of long hours worked, falling asleep at the desk and sharing the load, rather than everything being the work of one exceptional individual. Villeneuve takes his time to build up dramatic tension, often using long takes reminiscent of those he used in “Sicario.” Near the beginning, Banks leaves her office and crosses a parking lot, and the shot continues long enough for the viewer to see two cars moving towards a collision which does take place, a moment that foreshadows later events of greater ominousness. Later, when Banks is first brought to the alien landing site, a long aerial shot pans around the enormous vessel as well as the army camp below and the surrounding wilderness. It is a breathtaking moment that expresses the wonder and grandeur of this encounter, filtered through the individual experience of Banks which ensures the audience’s understanding.

Yet Banks’ experience is not the only one that matters, as the whole world is (understandably) involved in the alien arrival. Information is shared among different countries, although tensions rapidly rise and China takes on an intriguing role through the character of General Shang (Tzi Ma, “ The Campaign ”). The snippets of information about Shang’s approach convey the extremely murky territory that Banks and the viewer are in, a constantly evolving knowledge that could so easily lead to severe misunderstandings. Yet throughout this journey, optimism and hope never disappear, even when events that would thwart a peaceful understanding override the work of Banks and Donnelly. It is this non-partisan but widely applicable philosophy of sympathetic engagement that elevates Arrival , making it not only a superbly crafted piece of cinema, but a timely intervention in geopolitical discourse that calls for communication, understanding and peaceful coexistence.

Tagged: aliens , military , scientist , short story adaptation

Dr. Vincent M. Gaine is a film and television researcher. His first book, Existentialism and Social Engagement in the Films of Michael Mann was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2011. His work on film and media has been published in Cinema Journal and The Journal of Technology , Theology and Religion , as well as edited collections including The 21st Century Superhero and The Directory of World Cinema .

Movie Review: It Lives Inside (2023) Movie Review: The Inhabitant (2022) Movie Review: The Man from Rome (2022) Movie Review: The Breach (2022) Movie Review: Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) Movie Review: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) Movie Review: The Batman (2022)

'Movie Review: Arrival (2016)' have 10 comments

November 19, 2016 @ 9:24 am normandy

Good science fiction has the effect of making people think. Arrival is good science fiction and I definitely thought!

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November 19, 2016 @ 9:46 am densing cotton

Seemed kinda silly to me.

November 19, 2016 @ 11:30 am mashiko

Arrival is my favorite movie of the year. The idea, the atmosphere, the directing and the performances are all top notch stuff.

Everyone should see it. Now.

November 19, 2016 @ 12:04 pm Skids

This is one of those ‘hihgh concept’ movies that’s a jumble of ideas and never fully comes together. It confused the heck out of me so much I napped midway through..

November 19, 2016 @ 10:11 pm I Think I Thought

its pretentious fuckery

November 19, 2016 @ 4:48 pm consumable infrastructure

If you like Contact and Interstellar and Close Encounters, Arrival is a movie for you.

November 19, 2016 @ 5:58 pm Gidget

Good review- I agree it is the perfect movie for the times to give a sense of hope and understanding so desperately needed.

November 20, 2016 @ 1:07 am annetbell

Well written, thoughtful and inclusive review!

November 27, 2016 @ 2:22 am Carole Field

I thought it was a remake of “Close Encounters”. Beautifully done,but pointless. Everyone is assigning some deep stuff to its linguistic orientation. Careful- they manipulated you into that one!

January 13, 2017 @ 3:57 pm Andrew

I thought the guys in the rubber octopus suits were pretty marginal for what is supposed to be sophisticated SCIFI. Basically a waste of time and a mess of a movie

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The best netflix original movie 0f 2024 just dropped with a near-perfect rotten tomatoes score.

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Rebel Ridge

One thing a lot of Netflix subscribers have gotten accustomed to over the years is the general mediocrity of most Netflix Original movies. While the streaming service has quite a few bangers when it comes to TV shows, the movie quality—especially in 2024—has been mediocre at best.

Just think of some of the stinkers we’ve had to endure this year: Rebel Moon Part 2 was even worse than the first of Zack Snyder’s space opera flops. It scored a rotten 16% on Rotten Tomatoes . Jessica Alba’s Trigger Warning was an action flick that put most reviewers to sleep, and didn’t fare much better with a 20% Rotten Tomatoes score . Jennifer Lopez starred in the widely panned Atlas, which fared even worse at 19%. None of these movies did much better with audiences.

The one movie Netflix did release that had really good reviews with audiences and critics was Glen Powell’s Hit Man, a Richard Linklater film. That managed a 95% with critics and a 91% with audiences , but it was a genuinely mediocre movie and those scores are baffling to me to this day . I seriously cannot understand why so many people thought it was good.

Even the Mark Wahlberg / Halle Berry spy film The Union failed to wow audiences or critics, with a 39% critic score and a 21% audience score . Netflix has been struggling all year to land a hit.

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Finally, however, 2024 has its Netflix Original hit in the form of Rebel Ridge (another Rebel-titled movie but not to be confused with Rebel Moon ). At the time of this writing, the Jeremy Saulnier-directed movie has a 95% with critics and 78% with audiences. I watched it last night and it scratched that action movie itch.

In many ways it’s a throwback to older 90s action movies, though perhaps more specifically this is very much a Jack Reacher film without Reacher. Instead, Aaron Pierre plays Terry Richmond, an ex-marine who finds himself in the small Southern town of Shelby Springs facing a corrupt police chief and a whole lot of trouble.

Pierre is very much a Reacher character (the joke “black Reacher” is certainly apt) and Rebel Ridge is a lot like Killing Floor, the first of Lee Child’s Reacher novels and the basis for the first season of Amazon Prime Video’s Reacher series—the good season, not the awful second season. If you don’t mind that it’s obviously quite derivative and you’re looking for a good action movie with likeable leads and a fun little conspiracy, this is great Friday-night popcorn movie entertainment. Pierre is perfect in the role: Huge, muscular and just charming enough to pull it off, with piercing eyes that really convey intelligence behind the muscled frame.

Here’s the trailer:

Richmond isn’t a drifter, but like Reacher he’s ex-military and highly skilled and dangerous. When he’s run down on his bike by a local police officer, things take a turn for the worse. The police search him and find $36,000 in his backpack—his entire life savings—which he had intended to use partly to bail out his cousin and partly to start a business. They confiscate the money using civil asset forfeiture laws, which is a problem for Richmond since he needs to bail out his cousin before he lands in prison where his life is in grave danger.

From here, things go from bad to worse as the local police force turns out to be deeply corrupt, under the leadership of police chief Sandy Burnne (played perfectly by Don Johnson).

Like Reacher, Richmond has to take matters into his own hands, with a little help from a local court assistant Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb)—basically the Rosco analog—a woman with a good heart and a murky backstory. There’s a few little twists and turns, but overall this is a straightforward action flick. Other stars include David Denman ( The Office ) and the always terrific James Cromwell ( L.A. Confidential ).

Non-Lethal Weapon

One of the things that really sets this film apart from any Reacher story and pretty much every action movie I’ve ever seen is that Richmond isn’t a killer. He uses non-lethal tactics throughout the movie, and the body count by the end is shockingly low for a movie with this much violence. It’s actually kind of refreshing.

Is it perfect? Of course not. While there are moments of humor, this remains a pretty serious affair and I think the best action movies are the ones with a good sense of humor—think Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys and so forth. Is it worth watching? I certainly enjoyed it, but I’m a huge fan of the Reacher books and this type of popcorn action flick. And while it does deal with a black man being unfairly targeted by police, it never feels too preachy. This isn’t a movie that relies on current day politics to work, which I appreciate. It does take a shot at corrupt cops and our unjust justice system, but never at the expense of the story or entertainment value.

If you like this type of movie, give it a shot. I suspect—and hope—that it gets a sequel and that Pierre gets a franchise out of this. Netflix could certainly use some quality action movies, after all. (I liked the Extraction movies with Chris Hemsworth, but there hasn’t been a new one of those on Netflix in a few years).

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Joker: Folie à Deux First Reviews: Joaquin Phoenix Shines Again in 'Deranged, Exciting, and Deeply Unsettling' Sequel

Critics say todd phillips' follow-up benefits from another phenomenal performance from its lead and a strong supporting turn from lady gaga, but it may potentially prove just as divisive as its predecessor..

TAGGED AS: DC Comics , movies

Released five years ago, Todd Phillips’ Joker was an outlier among comic book movies. In addition to grossing over a billion dollars, it was nominated for 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, and it won two, including the Best Actor award for star Joaquin Phoenix . Its Tomatometer score was positive, yet the movie was divisive in its overall reception. Now, the musical-infused sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux , is less likely to be as big a phenomenon, and according to the first reviews of the movie out of the Venice Film Festival, it’s maybe not quite as good, despite another strong performance from Phoenix, plenty more technical delights, and the addition of Lady Gaga . Still, as with the first Joker , whether you love or hate it, it’s something to see.

Here’s what critics are saying about Joker: Folie à Deux :

Does it live up to expectations?

The highly anticipated sequel to Joker is as deranged and exciting as you would have hoped. — Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

Joker: Folie à Deux will surprise many people for its ingenuity… It’ll get people talking as much, if not even more, than the first. — Ema Sasic, Next Best Picture

This is one of the most unique takes on comic book characters I’ve seen on film… Phillips deserves praise for taking bold creative risks that pay off in unexpected ways. — Dorian Parks, Geeks of Color

[It’s] unlike anything I imagined it would be. — Catalina Combs, Black Girl Nerds

[It’s an] ingenious and deeply unsettling film. — Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

Folie à Deux is a movie tailored to its expectations, yes. But the Joker’s trick is that it rejects them, a bravado move from Phillips that’s sure to hemorrhage his fan base. — Luke Hicks, The Film Stage

Joker: Folie à Deux may be ambitious and superficially outrageous, but at heart, it’s an overly cautious sequel. — Owen Gleiberman, Variety

(Photo by Niko Tavernise/©Warner Bros.)

How does it compare to the first Joker ?

This is far more entertaining of a film than the first. — Yasmine Kandil, AwardsWatch

Just as bleak and formally daring… just as edgy and disturbing as its forerunner. — Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

Phillips and Silver have delivered the last thing anyone expected: a socially responsible Joker movie that finds an intriguing way to explore the consequences (both on and offscreen) of the first film. — Matthew Turner, NME

Unlike the original, which finds a perverse heroism in Arthur Fleck’s failings, Folie à Deux doubles down on how pathetic he is, and always was. — William Bibbiani, The Wrap

Though it ends up as strident, laborious, and often flat-out tedious as the first film, there’s an improvement. — Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

Die-hard fans of the first film may have some reservations about this story, which looks to course-correct some of the events and interpretations of the first film and its presentation. — Ema Sasic, Next Best Picture

(Photo by ©Warner Bros.)

Is Joaquin Phoenix still Best Actor material here?

Phoenix once again delivers an award-worthy performance… This time, it’s fascinating to watch him fully commit to the Joker persona, grappling with the duality of Arthur and the Joker like never before. — Dorian Parks, Geeks of Color

Phoenix delivers another masterful performance, this time more controlled and restrained as he goes deeper into Arthur’s psyche and showcases his impressive vocals. — Ema Sasic, Next Best Picture

Phoenix is fantastic once again as Arthur, delivering a compelling and remarkably physical performance that teeters on the edge of insanity throughout – it’s simultaneously chilling and unexpectedly moving. — Matthew Turner, NME

Phoenix’s performance is as strong as ever, adding a new layer of vulnerability to Arthur as he rapidly falls for Lee and descends back into madness. — Yasmine Kandil, AwardsWatch

His performance in Joker: Folie à Deux continues to amaze… He continues to be scary good at his craft. — Catalina Combs, Black Girl Nerds

If not topping his Oscar-winning turn in Joker, [he] at least find[s] a way to take him in a different, wholly surprising direction. — Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

Phoenix sprawls out across the screen, luxuriantly, comfortably, and confidently…however, he never loses Arthur’s inherent goofiness even when putting on this front. — Siddhant Adlakha, IGN Movies

What about Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn?

Lady Gaga is equally good as Harleen, sparking palpably insane chemistry with Phoenix. — Matthew Turner, NME

By far the riskiest role the famous artist has taken on, she is extraordinary and lights up the screen with her deranged presence just as much as Phoenix did in the first film. — Ema Sasic, Next Best Picture

Gaga is a compelling live-wire presence, splitting the difference between affinity and obsession. — David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Gaga shines in the sequel’s musical sequences. — Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

Gaga’s musical performance was incredible. — Catalina Combs, Black Girl Nerds

Gaga doesn’t quite reach the mania that Harley Quinn ought to have but still packs a wallop where it counts. — Kyle Anderson, Nerdist

Gaga never gets a chance to do what she did in A Star Is Born : seize the audience with her rapture. — Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Does it cater to the Batman fanbase?

As far as certain Bat-obsessed members of the fanbase who just want to see more of the same will be concerned – at certain points this feels like blatant teasing, and it’s bound to provoke a reaction. — Matthew Turner, NME

It forgets that other characters need attention. Gotham is such a rich, complex world; it’s a shame we don’t see more of it or the development of characters within it. — Catalina Combs, Black Girl Nerds

Phillips and Silver deserve credit for going their own way with a canonical DC character. But it’s difficult to imagine hard-core Batman universe aficionados being thrilled by [this] movie. — David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Folie à Deux doesn’t follow the typical comic book movie formula viewers are used to. For some, that might be off-putting; for others, it’s a breath of fresh air that breaks away from the norm. — Dorian Parks, Geeks of Color

It’s a much-welcomed surprise to see a studio franchise film, based on DC Comics so less, care so little for genre conventions. — Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

How is it as a musical?

The musical elements of the film were phenomenal… Gaga’s musical performance was incredible. — Catalina Combs, Black Girl Nerds

The musical numbers in Joker: Folie à Deux are well-performed and incredibly entertaining. — Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

Phillips does not allow the musical aspects to resemble the go-for-broke style of most musicals from the era when Arthur probably saw them or heard records growing up. — Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

I feel like if the movie was going to go for musical numbers, it should have gone for broke. — Kyle Anderson, Nerdist

Surprisingly, given the sheer quantity of musical numbers, the film chooses to downplay the choreography, instead focusing on the songs themselves. — Matthew Turner, NME

The musical numbers become overindulgent and only sometimes necessary. — Ema Sasic, Next Best Picture

While it’s a jukebox musical whose song selections range from Stevie Wonder to MGM standards, it is perversely dedicated to eliminating as much pleasure as possible from its song and dance numbers. — Alison Willmore, New York Magazine/Vulture

What about the score?

Hildur Gudnadottir’s score for the first Joker was so integral to the story it won an Oscar. Here she hits just the right notes again. — Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

The score for Joker: Folie à Deux kept me engaged, on the edge of my seat, and sometimes biting my nails. — Catalina Combs, Black Girl Nerds

Hildur Guðnadóttir once again cooks with another outstanding score that elevates the film. — Dorian Parks, Geeks of Color

The most crucial of callbacks is Hildur Guðnadóttir’s phenomenal Oscar-winning score, which still retains its haunting vigor. — Yasmine Kandil, AwardsWatch

Hildur Guðnadóttir’s grave-deep, cello-sawing score is heavy enough to throw your back out, lurking in the shadows of every romantic tune or nice moment. — Luke Hicks, The Film Stage

How does it look?

Lawrence Sher returns as cinematographer for the sequel, and once again he pulls out all the stops. His lighting is rich, his framing is arch, his allegories are often painfully in your face. — William Bibbiani, The Wrap

As with the original movie, the film looks gorgeous throughout, with cinematographer Lawrence Sher making strong use of color and conjuring up some beautiful images. — Matthew Turner, NME

The film’s cinematography does a fantastic job of capturing the gritty, oppressive atmosphere of Gotham City, perfectly mirroring Arthur’s battle into madness. — Dorian Parks, Geeks of Color

Production values across the board are excellent, particularly returning Lawrence Sher’s cinematography, the production design of Mark Friedberg, and costumes from Arianna Phillips. — Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

A few dreamlike flourishes do appear, though mostly to quote the familiar visuals of other musicals, like Jaques Demy’s French New Wave landmark The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Francis Ford Coppola’s sincere, expressionistic One from the Heart . — Siddhant Adlakha, IGN Movies

Is the screenplay good?

The screenplay is more restrained and less sensationalist than its predecessor, which works well with the themes at hand. — Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

It’s a surprisingly far more mature storyline that Phillips and Scott Silver have crafted for this sequel, continuing to deliver something entirely new with the already exhausted comic book genre. — Ema Sasic, Next Best Picture

Above all else, the script does a disservice to the complexity of Harleen Quinzel. This is far from an issue that stems from creating a new character variation, but rather its failure to commit wholeheartedly. — Yasmine Kandil, AwardsWatch

I exited the screening feeling that it was shameful that I did not care for any of the female characters in this film. — Catalina Combs, Black Girl Nerds

For a movie running two-and-a-quarter hours, Folie à Deux feels narratively a little thin and at times dull. — David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Not enough happens in Folie à Deux . — Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Is there enough substance to go with the style?

Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver have delivered a surprisingly moving, psychologically complex tale. — Matthew Turner, NME

This sequel is far more considerate and introspective than one would expect coming from a film that featured so many gruesome kills and muddled storytelling on its ultimate goals for society. — Ema Sasic, Next Best Picture

It seems Phillips wants to comment on what’s become entertainment in a TMZ world where tabloid stories and social media dominate interest over more serious issues… Joker: Folie à Deux has some answers, and twists. — Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

Phillips doesn’t risk misinterpretation. He’s less interested in commenting on society than in cooling down society’s temper. — Luke Hicks, The Film Stage

What’s most impressive about Joker: Folie à Deux is the way Phillips willingly undercuts his own billion-dollar blockbuster. — William Bibbiani, The Wrap

The worst thing about Joker: Folie à Deux is its unfulfilled potential… without doing or saying anything new. — Siddhant Adlakha, IGN Movies

Thumbnail image by ©Warner Bros. On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News .

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One of John Wayne’s First Starring Roles Was a Forgotten Western With 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

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The story of the big trail, the big trail could have kicked off wayne's career, the big trail earned acclaim on rotten tomatoes, where to watch the big trail.

Nearly a century after its release, John Wayne's The Big Trail has achieved yet another milestone. There are few names more synonymous with Westerns in the Golden Age of Hollywood than Wayne. Having led the industry alongside the likes of Marlon Brando, Rock Hudson, and Gary Cooper, the star burned brighter than even the marks embedded in the streets on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Yet, before he was considered one of Hollywood's most influential actors, Wayne was taking up smaller parts that hardly let him showcase his talents. The Big Trail was the first movie that saw Wayne as a leading man, and it launched a legendary career. It was even influential outside of that legacy, as it has secured enduring respect from critics and audiences alike.

An Amazing Modern Western You Probably Never Heard of Is Coming to Paramount+

An amazing but overlooked Western is heading to Paramount+.

• The Big Trail was released on November 1, 1930.

Westerns tend to reflect an idealized image of Manifest Destiny and the American journey to the Wild West. The Big Trail was no different. It saw a large crowd of travelers joining a caravan as they crossed the dangerous Oregon Trail. Wayne's Breck Coleman joined the group, but his intentions were not quite as positive as those hoping to start a new life for themselves. Coleman hoped to avenge an old trading partner , and his vengeance could only be paid in blood. Along the way, he encounters multiple enemies and schemes his way to justice.

The epic movie is not only about revenge, however. It also tells the story of a dangerous cross-country journey, featuring a large ensemble and an incredible scale for a production completed before the Hays Code was even properly implemented. Coleman stars alongside Marguerite Churchill's Ruth Cameron, who served as his love interest on the Oregon Trail. While it is far from a cross-genre Western movie , the romance element is fairly pronounced and plays a significant role in determining the ending.

This Legendary Actor Made One of the Best Western Movies of the Past Decade

Tommy Lee Jones is one of the best actors of all time, but one of his best films, a western called The Homesman, goes under the radar.

• The Big Trail was John Wayne's first starring role.

Wayne first entered Hollywood in 1926 when he appeared in Brown of Harvard as a minor football player. It was a silent film, as the first sound film would not be released until 1927. The medium hardly lent to Wayne's vocal and performing talent. It was not until 1928 that the man who changed the Western genre consistently began appearing in sound-based movies, and he still starred in extremely minor roles. He did not even earn credit for any of his appearances until 1929's Words and Music . With such a limited profile, The Big Trail offered an opportunity for Wayne to earn mainstream recognition for his talents.

Unfortunately, the leading role did not have quite the impact Wayne might have imagined at the time. Instead of sparking his rise in Hollywood, The Big Trail became a financial disaster . Its production was of a massive scale, and it could have earned a profit, if not for the time of its release. Having been sent to theaters in 1930, it met an America already enveloped in the Great Depression. While other movies from the 1930s saw success, Wayne's first starring role was released too early for audiences to have recovered from the economic challenges imposed by the stock market crashes of October 24, 1929, and October 29, 1929. Millions of jobs were erased from domestic markets, leaving viewers scrambling for money that they would rather spend on bread than a movie.

Wayne attempted other major roles after, but he only received starring roles in smaller productions. It was only in 1939 that he finally earned his big break with Stagecoach , one of John Ford's best Westerns . Wayne undoubtedly crossed a major milestone with his 1930 release, but the timing was not quite right to see him become the monumental star that dominated Hollywood for decades. Still, the appearance was proof that Wayne could already carry an incredible movie, even if his first performance was somewhat shaky. The inexperienced Wayne struggled to do more than sit on his horse, but it was a vital step in ensuring the progression of his career. Modern critics continue to pay close attention to his portrayal.

10 Best Modern Epic Western Movies, Ranked

The Western genre has gone through a resurgence in recent years and films like There Will Be Blood and True Grit are modern Western masterpieces.

It has been nearly a century since Wayne's first starring role, and it continues to earn acclaim. Critics have been praising it relentlessly, leading to a perfect 100% score on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. They hold immense esteem for the scale of the production, the intense and emotional connections between the characters, and the simplicity of the filmmaking style. Not all of them necessarily support Wayne's acting, however, as his early scenes provoked some criticism. Still, the reaction is overwhelmingly positive, as no reviewer thinks negatively of the early sound Western.

The average score from critics is 6.90 out of 10 , which is far below what regular viewers grant. Modern audiences have been somewhat more favorable, though the movie is divisive. With a 71% score on the Popcornmeter, it earned an average rating of 3.7 out of 5 from ordinary viewers . So, while there are viewers who responded overwhelmingly negatively, the average review afforded it a positive reception and a higher score than even the critics did. For one of history's most important Westerns , it's still a somewhat low score but still earns esteem for its incredible Tomatometer score.

10 Best Western Sequels, Ranked

There have been many great Western sequels, including several of the most critically acclaimed films of all time.

• The Big Trail had an immense budget of $1,250,000, which is the equivalent of $23 million today.

There are two different versions of The Big Trail , and both exist in the home market. The 35mm version and the 70mm version have both been re-released multiple times, owing to John Wayne's historical importance since the initial release. Anyone hoping to buy a physical copy can purchase it in Blu-ray, DVD, or VHS, though it is far from the most convenient option. Today, the rise of home streaming means that a physical copy is not quite as necessary as it used to be. Unfortunately, there are some issues with this particular movie.

At the moment, it is not available on any streaming service . It can be rented or digitally purchased from Apple TV, Google Play, or Fandango at Home. With so many years having passed since its release, the movie also does not often air on cable or premium networks. Viewers are left to watch solely by purchasing or renting the movie, which makes accessibility an issue.

That status quo is only expected to exist for two more years, however. With copyright limitations quickly approaching, The Big Trail should enter the public domain in 2026 . That means that more re-releases are possible and even a potential reimagining of the story. The movie was also added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 2006, meaning that it is unlikely that John Wayne's big break will ever fade from public consciousness, nor will it disappear from the historical record at any point. The Library will ensure that it will survive to be witnessed by future generations, even if current accessibility is limited. Given how essential it was to Wayne's career, that is excellent news for one of the greatest stars of the Western genre .

The Big Trail

Breck Coleman leads hundreds of settlers in covered wagons from the Mississippi River to their destiny out West.

Screen Rant

Lee daniels’ new netflix horror movie continues a disappointing 11-year trend after the butler.

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20 Best Directors Of All Time, Ranked

10 best movies like netflix's the deliverance, glenn close’s new horror movie trending #1 on netflix is a wild career first after 42 years.

Lee Daniels' Netflix-trending horror movie The Deliverance continues a "rotten" streak with critics that's prevailed since the director's 2013 historical drama, The Butler . Netflix's The Deliverance succeeds several Daniels-directed films that have either sank or swam with critics. Daniels' directorial debut, Shadowboxer , was his first critical flop - but he was able to follow it up with the sensational book-to-movie adaptation, Precious , which was a big success with critics, who scored it with a Certified Fresh approval rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes . Despite Daniels' rough directorial introduction, Precious helped raise anticipation for his 2013 movie, The Butler .

Daniels was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Directing for Precious .

For the most part, The Butler met the expectations of critics, as demonstrated by a positive 78% RT Tomatometer score. Even more, the film became Daniels' highest-grossing movie to date, earning $177.3 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo ). However, the rapport Daniels built with critics as a result of Precious and The Butler's outstanding performances would come to take a stark turn. Since The Butler , Daniels has yet to direct a movie that's made an impact with critics , even though the films have either drawn impressive crowds or rated high with general audiences.

As one of the oldest of the most popular entertainment mediums, the film industry has built an impressive catalog of legendary directors.

The Deliverance Continues Lee Daniels' "Rotten" Score Trend After The Butler

The deliverance was given a 32% approval rating by critics.

The Deliverance has performed well ever since its August 30 release on Netflix. For the week of August 26 to September 1, The Deliverance ranked third on Netflix's Global Top 10 chart with 14.5 million views and 27.3 million hours viewed. Currently, it sits in the No. 1 spot on Netflix 's Top 10 U.S. movies. Despite all this, critics have come to a condemnatory consensus about Daniels' supernatural horror, bestowing it with a frightful 32% RT score and continuing a “rotten” streak that began with The United States vs. Billie Holiday .

Whereas The Deliverance has proven its ability to draw crowds, The United States vs. Billie Holiday played its hand at impressing general audiences. The 2021 biographical drama about singer Billie Holiday earned itself a 79% audience approval score. Nevertheless, it didn't hold up as well with critics . Combined, the disappointing critical scores of The Deliverance and The United States vs. Billy Holiday - which possesses a low 55% critical approval rating - formed a trend that can only be broken by a future Daniels-directed project. At the moment, Daniels does not have any upcoming projects queued under his direction.

Why The Deliverance's Reviews Are So Negative

Critics slam the deliverance as unoriginal.

Underneath The Deliverance's mostly negative reviews , critics could find some bright spots. The Deliverance aims to document the haunting of the Jackson family, and amid its supernatural occurrences, critics gave props to the film's layered family story and cast performances. From The Deliverance's cast of characters came standout performances from Andra Day as Ebony Jackson and Glen Close as her mother, Alberta Jackson. Unfortunately, the film's clichéd genre tropes and predictable plot line overpower the potential The Deliverance had in its cast and family drama , making it hard to gauge it as anything but another unoriginal horror movie.

The audience reception of The Deliverance shared the same sentiments altogether but gave it just a little more credit. With 250+ ratings, general audiences granted Daniels' film a 49% score, citing The Deliverance's nostalgic feel and exploration of themes of faith and family trauma as additional strengths. All that said, none of The Deliverance 's strengths could save the film from the "rotten" territory that Lee Daniels has found himself in once again.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes , Box Office Mojo , Netflix

The Deliverance

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A woman returns to her childhood home to confront dark secrets from her past. As supernatural forces emerge and family tensions rise, she must uncover the truth behind her haunting visions and protect her loved ones from an ancient evil threatening their lives.

Netflix's new action-thriller movie has finally dropped — and it's 93% on Rotten Tomatoes

'Rebel Ridge' is another big hit for Netflix

Long-time Netflix subscribers may have noticed that standout original movies have been in short supply recently. While titles like "Hit Man" and "Baby Reindeer" have generated an impressive amount of buzz this year, few other releases have captured the same kind of widespread attention. But Netflix’s new action-thriller, "Rebel Ridge", seems to be the next big hit to land on the streaming service . 

With glowing early reactions and a high score on Rotten Tomatoes, "Rebel Ridge" is set to deliver the kind of high-stakes excitement viewers have been waiting for. The movie stars Aaron Pierre as Terry Richmond, a former Marine with exceptional martial arts and survival skills. When he crosses paths with a ruthless chief of police, he must put his formidable skills to the ultimate test. Critics have called this movie a "knockout," with some claiming Pierre will be the next "big action star." 

If these positive reviews have caught your interest and you need something new to watch on Netflix this week , "Rebel Ridge" should be added straight to your watchlist. Here’s everything to know about this action-thriller… 

What is 'Rebel Ridge' about?

"Rebel Ridge" is a high-stakes action-thriller that follows Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre), as he enters the small town of Shelby Springs to post bail for his cousin. However, his plans are derailed when local law enforcement unjustly seizes his life savings. This act of corruption sets Terry on a collision course with the local police chief, Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson), and exposes a deep-rooted conspiracy in the town. 

With the help of court clerk Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb), Terry must navigate a deadly conflict to bring justice to his family and protect his new ally, all as his own mysterious past starts to become clear.

'Rebel Ridge' reviews — critics are loving this Netflix movie

"Rebel Ridge" has earned 93% on Rotten Tomatoes from over 40 sample reviews (as of September 6). Of course, this rating could change once more people see the movie, but having these positive reactions early on is a very good sign.

William Bibbiani from The Wrap said: "A film like Rebel Ridge reminds us that you can lose yourself in exciting, engaging, stimulating entertainment while still keeping your brain completely on." 

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Meanwhile, Roger Ebert's Brian Tallerico was very impressed with the visual style of this thriller: "Rebel Ridge is just a reminder of how thrilling it can be to see a genre piece with this level of artistry."

Ultimately though, the reviews come down to Pierre's incredible performance. Flickering Myth's Robert Kojder stated that "Aaron Pierre is effortlessly cool, refusing to show signs of dehumanization even when stuck in humiliating situations. He also has a simmering, intimidating IT factor that lends exhilarating catharsis to the climactic showdown." 

Pramit Chatterjee from Digital Mafia Talkies put it simply: "Aaron Pierre as Terry Richmond is one of my favorite performances of the year."

Stream 'Rebel Ridge' on Netflix right now

So, by now you’ve probably gathered that "Rebel Ridge" is 100% worth watching, and you can experience this action-thriller now that it's on Netflix ( September 6 ). I’m definitely excited to see this movie on the world’s most popular streaming service, especially given the high praise it's already receiving.

Our managing editor at Tom's Guide (AU), Stephen Lambrechts, even said "Rebel Ridge" is one of his most anticipated Netflix movies of 2024 (Rambo for the modern age). 

Need more after "Rebel Ridge"? Why not check out this incredible war movie that's streaming for free ? Prime Video also just got one of the best action-thriller movies ever , if you're in the mood for some cool dystopian fiction.

Stream "Rebel Ridge" on Netflix now.

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Alix is a Streaming Writer at Tom’s Guide, which basically means watching the best movies and TV shows and then writing about them. Previously, she worked as a freelance writer for Screen Rant and Bough Digital, both of which sparked her interest in the entertainment industry. When she’s not writing about the latest movies and TV shows, she’s either playing horror video games on her PC or working on her first novel.

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Rebel Ridge Reviews

This is brace-yourself filmmaking that fully makes good on the promise that’s implied as Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast” blares over the opening moments

Full Review | Sep 7, 2024

With a throwback feel to post-Vietnam cinema, Director Jeremy Saulnier mints Aaron Pierre as a star.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 7, 2024

Jeremy Saulnier is unquestionably solidifying himself as one of today’s most exciting and artistically compelling filmmakers. Aaron Pierre emerges as a formidable presence. One of the year’s very best.

Action movies have been knocking off First Blood ever since it debuted in 1982, but Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge is the rare example of a riff that doesn’t just mimic the format but does so well and smartly updates it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 7, 2024

Aaron Pierre excels in this tense, though heavy-handed action thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 7, 2024

Director Jeremy Saulnier does his own version of a western meets Reacher/First Blood. Rebel Ridge first act is incredibly enthralling and sets up tension perfectly. Aaron Pierre continues to proof that his one of the best and brightest actors working.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 6, 2024

Saulnier is just such a masterful storyteller, weaving familiar elements together in a way that's incredibly compelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 6, 2024

Saulnier delivers another simmering powder keg

This is not Road-House-style Thug Cinema, seizing any excuse to ratchet up the bloodshed. Instead, it keeps pausing and de-escalating: without any dissipation, the body count is impressively close to zero.

Saulnier is a filmmaker firmly in control of his work. There are no soup sandwiches in his filmography.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2024

The end result is bravura filmmaking: smart, slick, muscular – and entertaining as hell.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 6, 2024

A tightly wound, extremely well-executed action thriller that plays to its strengths and comes off like a '70s genre exercise.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 6, 2024

With a low-but-pulsating score and a carefully-crafted building of tension, Saulnier gives the audience permission to want to see Terry enact his revenge on the cops.

Less bloody but every bit as cerebral and cunning as we’ve come to expect from Saulnier, this is a fine addition to his filmography that keeps viewers on their toes.

“Rebel Ridge” yearns to be lean and mean and hard, and Saulnier mires it down in a repetitive game of tag that grows interminable.

Saulnier raises compelling questions about power and its abuse, but it’s in attempting to answer those questions that Rebel Ridge starts to stumble.

Netflix's Rebel Ridge is a tense and action-packed film that has some soul in its storytelling, making it a thoroughly enjoyable affair.

Rebel Ridge’s first two acts focus entirely on the protagonist’s increasingly desperate attempts to operate in good faith while goalposts are being moved in front of him, and it’s the most satisfying thing Saulnier has made this far into his career.

Our pulses are elevated by the score, a relentless tattoo of drones and drums, plus the truly sensational camera work of David Gallego which, like our leading man, moves with measured intelligence and makes tactical use of every mirror in sight.

Aaron Pierre Is the next big actor star! Amazing performance. If he wasn't not on your radar, he should be now!

Full Review | Original Score: A | Sep 6, 2024