"Arrival" Knows How to Make an Entrance

In the first season of HBO’s True Detective, Matthew McConaughey’s character groaned about how time was not a line we all travelled, but was a “flat circle,” without beginning or end.  In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Mr. Spock posited to Captain Kirk that, once we’re all through rowing the proverbial boat down the stream, life might actually be just a dream.  While I’m all but certain director Denis Villeneuve had neither of those instances in mind while making his latest film, Arrival, he presents us with something of a combination of those two concepts, asking his audience to wrap our heads around the almost-infinite meanings of the sentence, “there is no time."

Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a professor who teaches the finer points of language.  When twelve alien spacecraft touch down at different points all over the world, it isn’t long before the U.S. military comes calling on her to help communicate with the visitors.  She insists on doing things on-site, but Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) isn’t going for it.  He eventually finds himself with no other option and brings Banks to the American site of the craft in Montana.  Joined by astrophysicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Louise jumps right in to meet with the creatures.  The process is slow, but increasingly effective, though the team find themselves up against a world-clock as other foreign leaders are growing more frustrated and impatient for results, leaning toward a much harsher course of action to learn the visitors’ purpose. 

Arrival is the most intimate of sci-fi films, with the emphasis on “sci-” rather than the “fi.”  While the semantics of the film aren’t completely original (there are pangs of Interstellar roaming around here), the execution is so sublime that you can’t help but fall into the intellectual puzzle the movie presents.  With Sicario, Villeneuve proved himself a master at building suspense and balancing audiences on a razor-thin edge, and those same sensibilities are applied to this quieter, more intimate story in a remarkably effective way.  Catching our first glimpse of the alien creatures or witnessing Louise and Ian's first successful attempt at communication are incredibly gripping moments, and we share every bit of their fear, anxiety, excitement and relief.

The film is strongest when offering parallel cutaways to Dr. Banks as a mother, which mixes nicely with ruminations of language, time and even déjà vu.  It may dwell too much on the drama of translation long after making its point, however, and is bound to test the patience of some. There’s even a needless subplot that detracts from Dr. Banks’ perspective, which Villeneuve makes great efforts to present, featuring a soldier watching too much crackpot propaganda on the internet.  If this dramatic device had not been an all-but exact copy of the plot twist used in Robert Zemeckis’ Contact, Arrival might would take its place alongside 2001: A Space Odyssey as one of the few “Perfect” science fiction films of all time. 

Those quibbles aside, Arrival continues to show us how far Amy Adams has grown from her teenage and princess roles.  As Banks, admittedly stuck in a man-driven operation, trying to urge the men to not nuke everything in sight, she is fiercely strong, and yet has sources of pain, solace and sadness.  Each component of her character is stirringly realised, and Adams is simply magnificent. Jeremy Renner as Donnelly gives an equally solid performance and matches her character with great chemistry, in a role that is so obviously a supporting one that I’m mildly surprised a star of his caliber would take it.  

Arrival is an extremely intelligent film, one that doesn’t feel the need to speak down to the audience about its subject, but engages you in such a way that you’re eager to join the conversation.  The great reveal at the end reflects back on all of what you have seen on a metaphysical level, transforming the personal misery of Dr. Banks into something beautifully hopeful.  Whether time is a flat circle, or if life is but a dream, a movie like this, one that offers us something hopeful, might be something we could all use these days. 

Do I have thoughts on "The Bourne Legacy"? Oh, do I...

Now, I know what Joe Average-Moviegoer has been saying since seeing the first TV spots back in March - What? Another Bourne movie?  Wait a minute – Matt Damon isn’t in it!  How the hell can it be a Bourne movie?  Sure, I understand the gut reaction to label this film as a cash-grab made to lure unsuspecting schmucks into blindly forking over their twelve bucks just because it has “Bourne” in the title, but I could argue that anybody who buys a ticket to a movie without any understanding of said movie might deserve whatever disappointment he/she may find.  If you know anything about Tony Gilroy, however, you’d know you probably didn’t have much to worry about.

I dig Tony Gilroy’s work.  I think he’s one of the best screenwriters working over the last fifteen years.  As primary screenwriter of two different fantastically-successful three-film franchises since 2001 (the Ocean’s series as well as the Bourne films), he has shown an ability to create interesting, watchable characters who speak clever, witty and intelligent dialogue, and to place them in situations that, even if far-fetched, keep the attention of contemporary audiences riveted to the screen (and given the gnat-like attention span of today’s audiences, this is no small feat).  I also firmly believe that Michael Clayton, his directorial debut, is one of the more underrated flicks of the last decade, despite its Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.  For these reasons alone, I was willing to give The Bourne Legacy a chance.

When the first attempt at making a fourth “Bourne” film, one that would have included Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, etc. and been directed by Supremacy and Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass (and also written by Gilroy), fell apart before shooting began, I, like most folks, figured that this was the end of the series.  However, if there’s a buck to be made, Hollywood will find some way to get it, so producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy asked Gilroy to write a new script and take over the director’s chair to see what he could do.  I would’ve had much, much stronger reservations about this flick if ANYBODY else had made it, since Gilroy was as much responsible for the franchise’s success as Greengrass and Damon.

All that being said, he pulled it off, folks.  Gilroy has created a “paraquel,” a story that takes place simultaneously with the events of The Bourne Ultimatum.  We learn that the Treadstone project is just one of many Defense Department operations involving scientifically-tailored intelligence agents.  As a result of Jason Bourne’s and Pamela Landy’s actions in the previous film, a Defense Department heavy named Byer (Edward Norton), decides to “shut down” all of the programs by killing off the field agents, as well as the scientists who created the methods by which the agents are maintained.  One of these agents is Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner, who escapes the attempt on his life in Alaska, makes his way back to the mainland, and contacts the scientist who monitored him, Dr. Shearing (Rachel Weisz) just as the CIA has arrived to shut her down, too.   Rescuing her, he learns that she knows how to free him of the medications he requires to maintain his peak physical and mental condition, and the quest to compete this process, being pursued all the while by Byer’s compatriots, takes us to the conclusion of the movie.

Jeremy Renner does a great job at NOT playing another Jason Bourne, which I think was a terrific decision on his and Gilroy’s part.  His Aaron Cross does not have the constant look of confusion that Bourne displayed due to his amnesia, nor is he as monotone in his demeanor as Bourne.  Cross actually smiles once or twice during this story, and Renner plays him as a curious, inquisitive type who wants to learn more about this “program” he’s joined as a means of becoming something better than he was in his life before volunteering.  Contrary to Jason Bourne, Aaron Cross remembers very well what he used to be, and wants very much to not go back there.   Rachel Weisz also brings her character above the stereotypical “damsel-in-distress” level, as despite it being obvious she is woefully unprepared for facing the consequences of her work outside of the laboratory, she does not shrink from what Aaron demands of her, and even plays an integral part in saving them from the final baddie near the film’s conclusion.

Legacy is not as frenetic, hyper-edited as the previous films were, and this seems a good thing to me.  Gilroy’s previous directorial efforts have all been a bit more cerebral than the Ocean’s pictures and the Bourne movies as a whole, requiring an audience to actually pay a bit of attention, and Legacy is no exception.  When I heard that bioengineering would be a component of the story here, I was afraid the movie would degenerate into science fiction somehow, but those fears were unfounded, and paying attention to the processes Dr. Shearing explains at different points of the movie made enough sense to me that I could easily invoke the Suspension of Belief that all moviegoers must grant movies at some point or another.  This is a Thriller, though, so there must be action scenes, and there are definitely a couple good ones here (the climactic motorcycle chase through the streets of Manila ranks right up there with anything from the other films).

It was fascinating to see a depiction of events surrounding the mayhem and carnage resulting from Jason Bourne’s actions in the previous films.  Some of the supporting characters from Bourne Ultimatum momentarily pop up here, and even provide enough fodder for another film, one which I could easily see either having a place in it for Jason Bourne’s return, or be a very interesting story without him.