'Arrival' is movie that forces you to think, which is a good thing

The new film Arrival is the kind of movie I like to say I admired more than I enjoyed. I am thrilled it's finding an audience (it opened with over $20 million last weekend) because it is both very original, thoughtful and intended for grown-ups, which as I am constantly griping, is increasingly rare these days.

It's not exactly a fun movie -- I found it to be plodding at times and its complex plot needed some untangling for me afterwards, but it's admirable movie. Although, I would personally put it a notch below director Denis Villeneuve's other films I've seen: Prisoners and Sicario.

This is not the film it's being marketed to be, which will either pleasantly surprise some viewers or infuriate them. Essentially a character study buried within a sci-fi mind-bender, what it can be accurately described as is a wonderful showcase for Amy Adams, who has emerged as one of my favorite actresses working today.

In some ways she reminds me of an old fashioned movie star in that she projects a sort of inherent goodness that is never boring. It would be interesting to see her play an outright villain and my favorite performance of hers to date (in American Hustle) did show quite a bit more edge, but in Arrival she is terrific as a woman haunted by death but innately curious about life.

Her world is one where communication is key -- she translates languages -- and she is thrust into an improbable crisis when unidentified flying objects pop up in a dozen places around the globe.

Not unlike Steven Soderbergh's underrated infectious disease thriller Contagion, Arrival treats the presence of extra-terrestrials in a wholly realistic and sober way.

This is not some CGI extravaganza, there are moments of palpable tension, but it's not really a thriller. The film makes you work a little bit to comprehend it which is something I can appreciate, although I wish it has been a little less languid and a lot more direct about what it was trying accomplish.

That said, Arrival is an ambitious movie -- which makes salient points about how we  as a society and individuals handle a crisis and how we interpret time, heady ideas for any film to take on.

I kept think this material would make for a very good book and for the most part if makes for a solid, engaging film. Its a lot more sentimental that Villeneuve's prior work and its elliptical nature -- that reminded me a bit of Interstellar, another film I found preoccupied with its own profundity -- can be a little indulgent at times.

Still, I am more than willing to say that this is a film I would revisit and re-evaluate, and it should be seen, if not other reason than Adams' lead performance, and the fact that it has the audacity to make an alien visitation movie where the aliens are pretty unimportant to the grander story.