• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments on Cult of Whatever
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • The Muppet Christmas Carol: Michael Caine as Scrooge

      The Muppet’s Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 20, 2022
    • Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 1

      2022’s Christmas Movie Watchlist!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 18, 2022
    • Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Poster

      REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • Troll: Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora

      REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry with The Hendersons

      Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • Fantastic Four Poster

      The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Beatles Selfie 1966

      August 29, 1966: Candlestick Park, 50 years later...

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 28, 2016
      Music Blogs
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga’s discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
  • TV
    Featured
    • Big Sky S03e05: Kylie Bunbury, J. Anthony Pena and Katheryn Winnick as Cassie Dewell, Mo Poppernak and Jenny Hoyt

      Big Sky S03E05 Review: Flesh and Blood - Glamping!

      By Salome G
      | October 22, 2022
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • Big Sky S03e10: Gang

      Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock – Break time…

      By Salome G
      | December 11, 2022
    • Rick And Morty: S01e03

      Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

      By Jason Collins
      | December 7, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e09: Dedee Pfeiffer and Cree as Denise and Emily

      Big Sky S03E09: Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire – Stalling

      By Salome G
      | December 1, 2022
    • The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special: Dave Bautista and Pom Klementieff as Drax and Mantis

      REVIEW: The GOTG Holiday Special is a sweet prelude to next year’s finale

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 27, 2022
    • The Midnight Club S01: The Gang

      The Midnight Club S1 Review – A series of unfortunate events

      By Salome G
      | November 24, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e08: Reba McEntire as Sunny Barnes

      Big Sky S03E08 Review: Duck Hunting – I love a weirdo.

      By Salome G
      | November 19, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Splatoon 3 Screenshot

      A trio of Nintendo Switch reviews!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 28, 2022
    • Nintendo Switch Logo

      Looking ahead to the Switch 2: Predictions and Wants

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 15, 2022
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • AEW All Out 2022: Keith Lee. Anthony Bowens, Max Caster and Billy Gunn

      AEW All Out 2022 - Review and (wild) Speculation!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
      AEW
    Recent
    • WWE WrestleMania 38: Cody Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins

      Was 2022 the wildest year in wrestling history?

      By Matthew Martin
      | January 4, 2023
    • AEW Full Gear 2022: Young Bucks and Kenny Omega Elite Entrance

      AEW Full Gear 2022 – A needed reset at the end of a tough year

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 22, 2022
    • WWE Survivor Series 1997: Bret Hart

      The Montreal Screwjob – Twenty Five Years Later

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 8, 2022
    • AEW Grand Slam 2022: Jungle Boy and Rey Fenix

      AEW GRANDSLAM 2022 showcased the present and future of the promotion

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 25, 2022
    • AEW All Out 2022: CM Punk

      AEW All Out Fall Out: All the CM Punk drama that’s fit to print!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
    • AEW Dark: Ricky Starks (22/09/20)

      The future of the AEW World Championship

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 14, 2022
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • Was 2022 the wildest year in wrestling history?
    • The Muppet's Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book
    • 2022's Christmas Movie Watchlist!
    • REVIEW: GDT's Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!
    • Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock - Break time...
    • Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?
    © Paramount Pictures

    Arrival Review: Making a baby and a killer adaptation (Spoilers)

    By Matthew Martin
    | November 18, 2016
    Movie Reviews
    © Paramount Pictures
    © Paramount Pictures

    Arrival Review: Making a baby and a killer adaptation (Spoilers)

    By Matthew Martin
    | November 18, 2016
    Movie Reviews

    I was initially very skeptical to hear that the now-fifteen year old short story “Story of Your Life” was being made into a feature-length movie. Not everything is adaptable, after all, and “hard science fiction” novella based around language doesn’t sound like a story that can be translated (no pun intended) to the big screen without sacrificing what makes it so special. But adapted it was and as its release approached the reviews started trickling out: 100%, A+, 4 stars, 5 stars, Thumbs Up etc, it was predicted to earn $85 million, but now it might exceed those expectations.

    Still my worry was that the reviews were praising it for being a great movie that didn’t bother to actually adapt the short in any meaningful way. I thought we might get something like The Shining, a movie that is acclaimed but features tremendous deviations from the source material. Instead, remarkably, they did it. Granted, a straight-adaptation would only run about 20 minutes, so a lot had to be added and padded, but the core of the short is there. In fact, the crux of the story—which isn’t about the aliens, or the language, but is about Louise’s time she has spent/will spend with her daughter—is so faithfully preserved and is so much at the heart of the picture that I’m stunned Paramount had the courage to greenlight it.

    You don’t see too many “hard” science fiction movies anymore, just looking at this fall it appears Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is one of the top favorites at the box office. With Arrival there aren’t witches or wizards or intergalactic dogfights, there aren’t tractor beams or death stars or Will Smith punching alien invaders in the mouth. This is a movie about a scientist and a linguist racing against the clock…to teach a couple aliens the alphabet. It shouldn’t be suspenseful, it shouldn’t be moving, it shouldn’t make you cry. But it is, and it does.

    Arrival Poster

    Let’s start there because it’s the part where I am the least objective.

    A month ago my wife and I were expecting our third child and then, after a routine check-up we learned that we had lost the baby. It’s the sort of thing that millions of parents-to-be have gone through, but it wasn’t something that we had gone through. Needless to say it was a a very trying time. We are only just now beginning to feel normal again. Considering the emotional crux of this movie involves the life and death of a child…it was a hard not to think about it.

    To that end, Arrival deserves tremendous credit for conveying emotion and pulling the audience’s heartstrings in a film whose basic plot is so technical and “brainy.”

    Arrival 2

    If you’ve not read the short story it’s based off of, you would do well to “pick it up” (so to speak; Amazon and other outlets have digital copies available). It can be read in one sitting: I went to bed one night at about 10:30 and finished it before midnight. The story jumps back and forth between two threads: There is the “present” (as the story presents it) wherein linguist Lousie Banks studies the recently-arrived aliens’ language, attempting to decipher it so that the government can determine what they want. There is also the “past” (as the story presents it) wherein Banks reflects and reminisces on her daughter, from birth to tragic death (she dies in a mountain climbing accident at age 25).

    Throughout the story you’re led to believe, because you have no reason not to, that the death of Louise’s daughter takes place before the events of the book. That presumption is turned on its head as the reader discovers, along with Louise, that the alien’s communicate and think in a way totally different from how we perceive space/time. It’s not a perfect explanation but the simplest way of thinking of it is: They know the future, and by learning their language and the way they use it, Louise is able to learn the future too.

    The twist ending of the book is the fact that the “reminiscing” of her daughter is actually Louise learning what the future holds for the child she has yet to conceive. And despite the fact that she knows her daughter’s life will end in tragedy, she still agrees to make the baby (with Dr. Donnelly, the scientist she studies the aliens alongside and eventually falls in love with), knowing that the time she will have with her will be worth the pain of losing her. It’s a very hard book to describe because it is not written with any normal respect to time and chronology. It’s not that it’s out of chronological order, like Pulp Fiction, it’s that it views time itself in a totally different way, like it’s a language that does not follow the same rules as our own.

    The same twisted concept of time is presented in the film, using what the audiences thinks are “flashbacks” to give us the background of Louise’s life with her daughter (who, in the movie, dies of a kind of cancer). As in the book, the viewer will likely be unaware that Louise is seeing and understanding the “future” until well into the third act. Visual clues combined with a haunting and moving score help reveal the twist without stopping the movie to spell it out with boring exposition. It tells its story and reveals its secrets with sights and sounds, not with dialogue. It reminded me a lot of a Chris Nolan movie, in that respect.

    Speaking of, critics who have praised the movie have decided to pit it against Interstellar, as though the two movies were in competition with one another. It is said by many reviewers that the film combines science fiction intelligence with emotional resonance in a way the Chris Nolan movie did not. That’s not really fair; Nolan’s Interstellar is much more ambitious in scope and execution. Arrival is intentionally much smaller, more intimate. It’s apples and oranges to compare them, despite their sharing a similar genre. The fact is Interstellar, in this writer’s opinion, accomplished what it set out to do and so did Arrival. People who criticize Interstellar for not having a heart are engaging in self-fulfilling prophesy; it was a criticism of the movie before it was seen, based on an unfounded attack of Nolan that all his movies are flashy and stylized but not very heart-pricking. Arrival is not Interstellar. They did not set out to do the same thing (or at least, not in the same way). They are both great films and both deserve heaps of praise for bringing “hard sci-fi” to mainstream film audiences.

    Arrival 1

    9/10 – Admittedly, Arrival is not going to be a movie for everyone, but those who know what they’re getting will be more than satisfied.

    No matter how well done it is, those looking for a sci-fi adventure akin to Star Wars are going to be let down. But viewers who go in with the understanding that this is a small, “half head-half heart” kind of movie, the uses an alien visit as a backdrop, will leave very impressed. It’s one of the finest movies of the year.

    Share this article:

    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit

    Tags

    Adventure MoviesArrivalSci-Fi MoviesThriller Movies

    COMMENTS

    Please read our Commenting Policy before you join in with the discussion.

    Note: If you have email notifications enabled, please check your email spam folders to ensure emails are not missed.

    Subscribe
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    Notify of
    guest

    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    guest

    0 Comments
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments

    You might also like

    • Has sci-fi finally lost its edge?

      By Ben Hargreaves
      | March 29, 2015
    • Let’s talk about Neill Blomkamp’s Alien movie

      By Louise MacGregor
      | March 25, 2015
    • JJ Abrams modernized Star Trek…at great cost.

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 19, 2016
    • Of gods and pretenders: Why a world distrusting Superman makes perfect sense…for now

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 22, 2015
    • Review: 10 Cloverfield LN. is a masterpiece of tension and horror (Spoilers)

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 12, 2016
    • Review: Independence Day – Resurgence (explosions is love; explosions is life)

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 26, 2016
    • Review: Ridley Scott’s The Martian is a major minor masterpiece

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 4, 2015

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    Movie Topics

    Recommended for you

    • REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
    • Spirited Away remains Studio Ghibli’s “greatest” film

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 16, 2022
    • Read the Book Instead: The most disappointing book-to-film adaptations

      By Oliver Johnston
      | September 20, 2021
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter
    wpDiscuz