Arrival (2016)

This is a better movie than Interstellar, but it suffers for being the second to the time-warping alien movie party.

Thinking about this movie after the fact, I feel like I was juked a little too hard. (SPOILERS) Clearly, we the audience were supposed to be fooled into thinking that Amy Adams was sleepwalking through life due the death of her daughter, but the fact was that there had been no daughter, so no reason for her depressive attitude and, actually, we were tipped to her daughter way before she was… just stop with the trickery. You can be a good movie without pulling a “gotcha.” Let us learn along with the protagonist -- don’t screw with our minds ahead of time. I promise we’ll think you’re clever anyway.

Oh, except for that whole “she’s gotta see the phone number” scene, which just called to mind Bill and Ted thinking really hard about hiding the car keys.

B