Arrival (2016) - Villeneuve, Heisserer and Adams head sensational sci-fi wonder

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+ Best Adaptation of the Year + Best Science Fiction Movie of the Year

A sharp, excitement-inducing poster for Denis Villeneuve's Arrival

Peoples of the world react with curiosity and fright when twelve mysterious space ships of alien origin arrive in different countries to simply hover and present riddles for us to grapple with. At the US site, a linguistics professor works against the clock to understand the event.

Arrival is the 8th fiction feature by Canadian master filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Sicario (2015)) and is written by Eric Heisserer (The Thing (2011)), based on Ted Chiang's (Tower of Babylon (1990)) novella Story of Your Life (1998).
It is an intensely exciting ride, which feels extremely real throughout. It presents what can be described as a classic sci-fi story and the dilemmas it spurs: If an alien intelligence landed on earth and didn't make its intent known to us, - how would we react? This The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)-like premise gets heightened through the catch that there's not one or two but 12 alien vessels, which force people of different languages and cultures to try and work together to grasp the intent of the uninvited guests. Appropriately, the story centers on a linguistics professor, and her and her fellow scientists' work gets pitted against the realities of a majorly militarized command with uneasy communications with other arrival nations, and the untrustworthy nature of people in flocks. The fickleness of our unity as a race and our security gets probed effectively in the story's thrilling developments.
Amy Adams (The Ex (2006)) is nothing short of marvelous as professor Hannah, who arrives at the job with a heavy personal trauma gnawing at her soul, which gets illuminated increasingly as the film progresses. The performances of Jeremy Renner (The Bourne Legacy (2012)), Forest Whitaker (Rogue Nation: A Star Wars Story (2016)), Tzi Ma (Million Dollar Arm (2014)) and Michael Stuhlbarg (Seven Psychopaths (2012))) all add to the integrity and believability of the intelligent story, making it extra tense.
Arrival unfolds unexpectedly and is underscored by a terrific score by Jóhann Jóhannsson (The Theory of Everything (2014)). The visual effects, sound design, elegant, complex cinematography (by Bradford Young (Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018))) and production designs are first-rate. Maybe the conclusion is less than the ride that comes before it but that doesn't take much from the impressive work done here.

Related posts:

Denis Villeneuve: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess
Incendies (2010) - Villeneuve's dreary and depressing, wildly overrated drama

Watch an official trailer for the film here

Cost: 47 mil. $
Box office: 129.8 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say (but already a box office success)
[Arrival premiered September 1 (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 116 minutes. Filming took place in Canada in and around June 2015. The film opened #3, behind holdover hits Doctor Strange and Trolls, with a 24 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it by now has spent 5 weeks in the top 5. The film has yet to open in big markets Italy and Japan. It looks like a shoo-in for several Oscar nominations and has already conquered the #100 spot on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, as well as two Golden Globe nominations and its place on AFI's Top 10 of the year list. Arrival is certified fresh at 93 % with a 8.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Arrival?

Lights Out (2016) - Sandberg debuts with effective spook story

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The curiosity-sparking, simple poster for David F. Sandberg's Lights Out

 

Lights Out is the feature debut of David F. Sandberg (Closet Space (2016), short), based on his own same-titled 2013 short and written by Eric Heisserer (The Thing (2011)).

Following the violent, mysterious death of his father, little Martin reaches out to his big sister, who lives alone in the city. Their mother is depressed and mentally unstable, talking to a woman in the house, who died decades ago, and who can only be in the dark.

Lights Out is an old-school spook story or a campfire story, sure to upset especially its younger audiences' night's sleep. It's got an effective gimmick at its heart; a maleficent entity that only moves in the dark. The film gets a lot out of this premise and couples it with a story of mental illness and an incredible skin disease.

Maria Bello (Grown Ups (2010)) is very credible as the mentally unhinged mother, and Gabriel Bateman (Annabelle (2014)) plays the brave boy Martin very well. None of the others are anything less than good, although the bigger sister, essentially the film's protagonist, and her relationship with her long-haired, slightly dopey boyfriend wasn't all that hot. I also wouldn't have minded a little fun in Lights Out, but that isn't part of its game.

Instead it succeeds in being a creepy, very simple horror with some good shocks and effective sound design. Don't expect a gore fest here. Lights Out is not that type of horror.

Watch an official trailer for the film here

Cost: 4.9-5 mil. $

Box office: 110.9 mil. $ and counting

= Mega-hit

[Lights Out premiered June 8 (Los Angeles Film Festival) and runs 81 minutes. Sandberg had not worked with a film crew or been on a film set before directing the film. Filming took place in LA from June - August 2015. The premiere was arranged to benefit from the major success of one of its producers, James Wan's The Conjuring 2's release around the same time. The film opened #3, behind new release Star Trek Beyond and holdover hit The Secret Lives of Pets, to a 21.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd week and to date has grossed 64.5 mil. $ (58.2 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets have been Russia with 3.7 mil. $ (3.3 %) and Argentina with 2.4 mil. $ (2.2 %). A sequel with Heisserer and Sandberg back as writer and director, respectively, has already been announced. Lights Out is certified fresh at 76 % with a 6.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Lights Out?

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) - Another terrible remake of a horror classic

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Jackie Earle Haley awaits us as the new Freddy Krueger in Samuel Bayer's A Nightmare on Elm Street

A group of youths from the same high school begin to get the same nightmare of a disfigured man in a striped sweater with a knife-hand that can cut them in reality!

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a shamefully uninspired remake of Wes Craven's 1984 classic of the same title, written by Wesley Strick (Doom (2005)) and Eric Heisserer (Final Destination 5 (2011)) and directed by music video director Samuel Bayer (Max (2005), short), making his feature debut. The film even allows itself to give Strick a separate story credit, although the story is all Craven's.
Nightmare starts by focusing on a young blond, who looks like a 25 year-old porn star, but who is supposed to be a regular high school girl. Her mother of course looks like an about two year older sister. SPOILER Then she dies, and we get a new protagonist, an increasingly bleary-eyes Rooney Mara (Carol (2015)). She and Kyle Gallner (Red State (2011)) make an honest attempt here, but they can far from save this a bit more ornery version of the original story, which remains a good one.
Worst about the Nightmare remake is that the personality is stripped from its iconic villain, Freddy Krueger, and that the film doesn't have the strange dream-state horror of the original. Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen (2009)) as Freddy is stuck with a mask so tight that he can give the role neither facial expressions nor real life. It's awful. Connie Britton (The Lather Effect (2006)) has good hair in the film, SPOILER but has an ungrateful role and ends up getting her eyes splatted out.
A Nightmare on Elm Street must be among the year's worst films.

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2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) or, Don't Fall Asleep!

Here's a promo clip for the film

Cost: 35 mil. $
Box office: 115.6 mil. $
= Box office success
[A Nightmare on Elm Street premiered April 27 (Hollywood) and runs 95 minutes. As part of the film's development, it was decided to take the witticism away from the new Krueger, have him look more like a real burn victim and also change him from only a child murderer to also a child molester. Filming took place from May - July 2009 in Illinois and Indiana. The film opened #1 with a 32.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it fell a steep 72 % in its second week but still made #2 and eventually grossed 63 mil. $ (54.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia with 5.7 mil. $ (4.9 %) and the UK with 5 mil. $(4.3 %). Haley is contracted for two sequels, Mara for one, but development of any sequel has stood still since the film's release, and Bayer has not done a film since. A Nightmare on Elm Street is rotten at 15 % with a 3.7 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street?

The Thing/The Thing Awakens/The Thing: The Beginning (2011) - Career-ending, flawed monster horror prequel

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Digital Effects (lost to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

One icy poster for Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s The Thing

QUICK REVIEW:

In this Thing prequel, we are to learn about the time prior to the events in John Carpenter's masterpiece The Thing (1982), that is, the catastrophe in the Norwegian company in the Antarctic, who were the first to meet the thing! There's of course a storm, and the paranoia is revisited, (this time only with teeth examinations instead of blood samples.) Most of it is seen through the eyes of the only woman up there, an uninspired and forgettable Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Kill the Messenger (2014)), who takes command over the Norwegians.

Among the Norwegians, even great Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen (Banshee (2013-16)), who varies between speaking Danish and Norwegian (...) bores. The characters are vaguely sketched and uninteresting; the suspense curve is unsophisticated and the update as a whole is unoriginal. Script by Eric Heisserer (Final Destination 5 (2011)).
Furthermore, Michel Abramowicz' (Taken (2008)) cinematography shakes in otherwise dead still dialogs, - very annoyingly.
But in the film's second half, The Thing experience brightens up some due to inventive CGI and one genuine shock. Of course a major part of what makes the '82 film so thrilling is its incredible practical effects, which this new film doesn't even try to achieve, and there's no doubt that the new Thing doesn't gain anything from simply overtaking its title from its much superior predecessor.
It is directed by Dutch filmmaker Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. (Zien (2004), video).

Related post:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Watch the red band trailer for the film here

Cost: 38 mil. $
Box office: 27.4 mil. $
= Huge flop
[The Thing was something of a disaster commercially; opening #3 in North America to 8.4 mil. $, it fell our of the top 10 in its second week, grossed 16.9 mil. $ (62 % of the total gross) and was even less successful abroad. The film, which was lambasted by many, effectively ended Heijningen's career: He hasn't made anything film-related at all since.]

What do you think of The Thing?