It’s a really, really good movie. There are Important Plot Twists that I won’t get into, so this’ll be lean on details.
It’s a rare *smart* science fiction movie. The plot is driven by the effort to communicate with a species that communicates very, very differently from humans. There is little of the usual interpersonal drama… yes, there’s the standard “Army Guy runs the Show, with CIA Spook in the corner, in charge of Science Guys. But the Army Guy *isn’t* the angry, blow-em-up dumbass; the Spook isn’t there to screw people over, and the Science Guys aren’t flighty dimwits.
One of the problems people had with the trailer some months back was that it showed Chinese fighters on US ships. This makes sense… not that it’d make sense for that to actually happen, but the scene in the movie lasts about *one* second. The budget for the flick is less than $50 million, so doing some quick digital tinkering makes a lot more sense than building a complete navy.
The aliens are, indeed, alien. You do eventually get a reasonably good look at them, and they make sense in the context of an utterly alien evolution in a low gravity environment. They are not A Guy In A Digital Suit. While they are not explicitly Lovecraftian, I don’t think he would’ve sneered at their design.
There aren’t really any Villains here, apart from some random jackasses here and there… which you’d certainly have.
The characters on the whole don’t do stupid things to advance the plot. Interestingly, one character does something almost exactly like something that brought out howls of “that’s friggen’ stupid” when people watched “Prometheus,” but here it was done not because the character is an idiot, but because the character sees it as a necessity, and does so with full knowledge.
The aliens technology is not explored. Very little is shown… about all we find out is that they’re pretty good at manipulating gravity. They also have something one might consider a superpower, and this plays into the Big Twist. The science-guy in me grumbled a bit at that ability, but willing suspension of disbelief is juuuust possible here.
The movie is subdued. No chases, dogfights, running around with hair on fire. It is also pretty melancholic… there is a personal tragedy that runs through the movie from beginning to end.
So if you like splodey, this isn’t really your movie. If you like a good solid effort at serious sci-fi… here ya go.
PS: one of the characters who really helps sell the mood of the movie is the setting. Supposedly Montana, I believe this was actually somewhere in Quebec. It would surprise me not at all if this place winds up a tourist spot like the Field of Dreams in Iowa.
