Denis Villenueve. A solid lineup. A different take on first contact. I loved Sicario but went in expecting a cerebral epic sci-fi.
That was a mistake.
Good things:
- Some really nice visual scenes
- Interesting aliens Calligraphy aliens!
- Clear theme of communication is omnipresent
- A neat score that might be awesome in a different movie
Bad things:
- The acting
- The lack of emotional reaction to ALIENS! The students asking to turn on the TV, all of the main characters
- Lack of useful characters Only the aliens and Louise actually did anything the entire movie.
- Supporting characters are very stupid in an attempt to foil the main character slightly
- Very clumsy exposition. Genre-typical news reports, voice-overs, dumb characters asking stupid questions.
- Very slow pacing. This worked in parts of Sicario, but didn't work in this movie because there was no tension. The main characters never seemed remotely threatened.
- Lousie showing up at school thinking everyone will be there after aliens arrive and there's a state of emergency
- Why can't you translate alien language like you can translate Farsi. This is a paraphrase but in the spirit of what Colonel Weber was saying.
- Useless love interest when the costars have no chemistry.
- Ultrasecure military base lets someone steal a ton of explosives and put it in an ALIEN SPACECRAFT without anyone noticing.
- Many unbelievable plot points
- Poor dialogue Let's make a baby - real quote
- Poor handling of the major plot points Looking through time seems to undermine the fact that the aliens need help. Why did one have to die if they could see the future? Why did only one die when they were right next to each other?
- Very heavy handed moral messaging that didn't align with the rest of the movie.
- Why couldn't Ian also see into the future as he studied the language, or any of the others?
Overall extremely disappointing. I'm honestly surprised critics or general moviegoers like this. The premise was very good. It's a real shame the execution failed so miserably.
in short the pacing of each episode and the season as a whole is all wrong.
wasting too much time to getting to the point, next to no fight scenes comparing to other shows like this in the season.
all fights and action filled scenes are over all too quickly.
a character and actor that was lovable in Jessica Jones is now in need of a bitch slap most of the season.
its sad really, you have a powerful character that can slap everyone out in this show. yet he uses most of his time (the little we see of him sometimes) feeling sad for those around him and himself instead of take action.
while the comic characters history has alot to do with the subject of race and color.
bringing all of this into a series in a ham-fisted way isnt the way to go.
most of the time me and my friend was watching this we where wanting more action, more of the main character and more of a villan that we care about.
when i can say with good heart that daredevil and any comic show out now beats this by miles and miles.
when the pacing is so off that you think you are watching a double episode but its really just a 40min one then its something wrong.
when you feel like this episode takes forever to be done then its something wrong.
i watch all the comic shows out and i love them all (except this and agents of shield)
its sad really, as i LOVED his character in Jessica Jones.
