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Arrival
Watching Hail Mary (see earlier review) stirred Ivy’s interest in sf films, which she had been avoiding because she thought they would be too complex/too violent/too silly. So I remembered watching Arrival some time ago (in fact there might even be an earlier review of it here; I forgot to check), and thinking it was a good film. Non violent, not too complicated. Only silly if you think about some of the protocols that weren’t being observed and the speed with which things resolved.
I’m not going to give detailed spoilers here. It’s a film worth watching, even if it is ten years old now. What struck me this time is how more recent sf films (yes, including Hail Mary) have used some of the visualisations used in Arrival. Just as, of course, some of the slightly older recent films have built on 2001 A Space Odyssey. No doubt some of the updating in Hail Mary will be poached by sf films of the future…
I can feel a story coming on.
Remarkably bright creatures
This film, for anyone who doesn’t already know, features an octopus in a sea-life aquarium commenting on and sometimes influencing the lives of the humans it sees (and some that it doesn’t). Sounds silly? I thought so, too, but we thoroughly enjoyed in (either on Netflix or Amazon Prime). Sally Anne Field gives a stand-out and so, of course, does the octopus. It’s a CGI octopus, incidentally, not a real one, but you really can’t tell. All the other characters give strong performances and the film, ‘remarkably’, just works.
If you can swallow the enormous coincidence that kicks the whole story off, then you’ll enjoy this rather gentle film. You might even enjoy it if you can’t. If you can get around to seeing it streaming somewhere, I’d recommend it.
Disclosure day
So I was right about Ivy getting a taste for sf films. After an enormous meal at the next-door China Banquet restaurant, we watched Spielberg’s latest extravaganza in Kilmarnock Odeon. It started badly because Screen 5 had no lighting at all. It was pitch black and there was no way for anyone to find their seats unless they wanted to utilise phone flashlights. Which nobody did.
That was eventually sorted out and we started off with the trailers for upcoming films. Thoroughly enjoyable… The Odyssey, the new Spiderman move, Supergirl, and Treasure Island (which I hadn’t even known about) were all featured.
Oh… yes, and the film itself? We enjoyed it. It’s a funny mixture of sf and a spy chase plot, but it works well. There were a couple of things that didn’t quite make sense to me, even allowing for the film’s premise (the most obvious being the sudden appearance of corn rings around one of the main characters, for no reason that I could see, and with no agency for doing it even hinted at. Weird). But overall the plot was pretty good. Emily Blunt was really good in her part, and all the other characters were well played.
Ivy said she’d give it 8 out of 10. I’d agree with that. Well worth watching.
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