Amy Adams reaches for the stars in Arrival, featuring giant, smoke-ring blowing aliens

REVIEW: Amy Adams has a way with aliens in Arrival, the haunting sci-fi drama from Sicario director Denis Villeneuve.

ARRIVAL

Star rating Three and a half stars

Director Denis Villeneuve

Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker

Rating M

Running time 116 minutes

Verdict 2016 space oddity

Aliens seldom shine when they are cast in a dramatic role on film.

Fantasy and comedy tend to be extraterrestrial creatures’ native habitats — ET, Maz Kanata and the potty-mouthed Paul being three standout examples.

Horror also provides the more predatory species with an extremely hospitable atmosphere (Alien, The Blob).

Things tend to go awry, however, when filmmakers get serious (it’s a bit like those ’70s experiments in which linguists attempted to turn a chimp into a human.)

Arrival’s aliens continue in that chequered tradition.

Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner in a scene from the Dennis Villeneuve film Arrivals

Even their space pods — these ovoid edifices are way too organic to be described as ships — are strangely inert, although the method of entry and exit is extremely cool.

The giant heptapods look like something out of a Jules Verne.

They communicate by blowing ink/smoke rings out through their tentacles — writing in complex graphic symbols that turn out to be far more powerful than anyone realises.

The blind, squid-like creatures aren’t ridiculous, just hard to relate to and not particularly credible.

Thankfully, these extraterrestrial tourists aren’t Arrival’s primary focus.

Director Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Sicario) is more interested in what this alien species can teach us about existential conundrums such as life, death and the mysteries of the universe.

When a bunch of alien spaceships land at a number of seemingly random geographical locations around the globe, military commanders prepare for the worst.

But since no immediate threat is apparent, US government forces call upon Dr Louise Banks, who is coincidentally a linguist, to help them make contact.

Jeremy Renner in a scene from film Arrival

Making quick progress, she begins to communicate with the heptapods via written language — a process that somehow generates powerful flashbacks to key moments shared with her late daughter.

Complementing Adams’ pared-back performance, Jeremy Renner deftly underplays his hand as the mathematician who has her back.

Forest Whitaker is good, too, as the seasoned US army colonel who effortlessly commands respect.

With mankind teetering on the edge of global war, Banks’ search for answers becomes strangely personal.

The jigsaw puzzle pieces together backwards to reveal a story about memory, time and the choices we make.

Arrival is reaching for something it can’t quite grab hold of. But it comes a whole lot closer than most.

Arrival opens on Thursday November 10.

Originally published as Amy Adams reaches for the stars in Arrival, featuring giant, smoke-ring blowing aliens