Film
The multi-award nominated and winning film, starring Amy Adams (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Her) and Jeremy Renner (Captain America; Civil War, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation), putting forth the very philosophical and through provoking story of twelve spacecraft that appear around the world. A linguistics professor, Louise Banks (Adams) is tasked with interpreting their language of these alien visitors, along with physicist Ian Donnelly (Renner).
Put under an extreme amount of pressure, as global tensions mount amidst friends and allies, by the US military’s Col. Weber (Forest Whitaker – Rogue One, Taken 3).
Arrival puts many a question to the viewer, answering some, while leaving others for the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
Rewatch value on this film is reasonably high, with subsequent views allowing for other angles or interpretations of the story, as one unwinds the complex meanings in a rather straightforward plot.
Read the full SAMDB review of Arrival.
Disc
Overall, the disc is of a decent quality, coupled with an excellent film, and two great bonus features.
Arrival is available now, to purchase on disc, in South Africa.
Video
Video is encoded at a high average bitrate. There are no visible artefacts on screen. Although the creative choice in the film is devoid of many vibrant colours, there is no visible colour bleed.
There are several dark scenes in the film, presenting some high contrast visuals. These maintain detail very well, with dark blacks.
Viewers with the necessary hardware or software could scale up to larger or higher resolution screens, should they wish.
Audio
Audio is encoded at a high average bitrate, and presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. Dialogue is clear via the centre speaker, with clear sound via the front channels. Surround channels are used to good effect to expand the on-screen action, and further draw the viewer into the story.
Navigation
Navigation is simple, and easy to follow. The main menu is static, with background music. There are text links to play the main feature, select the desired language, scene selections and special features.
Scene selections present static sub-menus, with four static, colour thumbnails per page. Although these are numbered, they do not contain any chapter headings, making navigation to a specific spot in the story a bit of guesswork.
Bonus Features
While there are only two bonus features on the Arrival DVD, these are packed full of insight, and add a great amount of value to the disc.
Xenolinguistics: Understanding Arrival – A look behind the scenes, at the meaning, and creation of the film. With much insight into production design, characters, and the alien language. How the filmmakers tried to keep things are real and grounded as possible, yet bring a story that was not rooted in other science fiction. A very insightful look at the making-of story, and bound to be a delight to fans of the genre, actors and filmmakers alike.
Acoustic Signatures: The Sound Design – How the various sounds of the film were conceived, and how those relate to story and their intended meaning and effect. Well worth a view, as they add a great deal to the value behind the film, exposing all the work and effort by those involved.
