This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
The music was good, the cinematography was good. But how do you have a movie set in Indonesia without a single Indonesian character? The movie shies away from any depictions of the effects of colonialism, imperialism, and war on its indigenous victims, and instead focuses entirely on the inner lives and interpersonal relations of the soldiers of two colonial and imperial powers fighting over control of a territory that would only realize its independence after the war.
The message of…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
I originally rated this movie five stars, but after watching it another couple of times and reading the original short story, I have to say it's not a great adaptation. Even disregarding the Sinophobic treatment of China in the film (which we should not), the film falls short in many other areas. "Story of Your Life" was beautifully written and I love Ted Chiang's works. "Arrival" is much more inconsistent and fails to properly communicate many of the ideas put…
I knew to expect an irresponsibly irreverent take on a genocidal imperialist war that resulted in over a million deaths even by conservative estimates. But I didn't expect to see Robin Williams' character begging his driver to pull over so he can sexually harass random Vietnamese women on the street within the first ten minutes of the movie. I turned it off after that.
i enjoyed the movie up until one throwaway joke by a minor character during the credits. for a movie about struggling to define yourself and express yourself as an individual inside the alienating hellscape of capitalism, you'd wonder why they'd cap it off with the "lovable" blue-collar worker character randomly shouting a horribly homophobic and transphobic remark at the protagonist for no reason and trying to pass it off as just good-natured ribbing (here's a hint: it's not funny just…
