"Arrival' presents a puzzle, only Amy Adams can solve. A dozen egg-shaped monolith space ships land around the world. America and other nations send in their armies. One night, a helicopter lands at Amy Adams' house. She's a linguistics professor, who the military believes can crack the code. The professor takes the assignment while grieving the death of her young daughter and the end of her marriage. Strong & silent military chief Forest Whitaker pairs Amy with scientist Jeremy Renner. Together, they encounter the strange beings and begin to make progress. Unfortunately "Arrival" feels like a lot of plots from a lot of other movies... from "Plan 9 from Outer Space" to "Close Encounters" to "Contact" with a bit of "E.T." thrown in for good measure. Some will love the mystery surrounding "Arrival," a mystery that has something to do with the numerous flash backs of Amy Adams' life. Romantics can dip into their imagination; and the serious can fashion a theory to explain it all. Personally, it felt to me like the writers couldn't think of an ending. "Arrival" has good performances and Amy Adams remains one of our time's great talents. "Arrival" looks great and makes good use of special effects. But "Arrival" runs long, starts to drag, and feels like a story in search of an ending - a close encounter, but no cigar. Does it deliver what it promises? Sci fi mystery. Is it entertaining? Intriguing at first, but runs out of gas. Is it worth the price of admission? For science fiction buffs.
