I feel like the movie did a good job of leaving the world’s ultimate reaction (after shock) open-ended and making that the point. Of course the cynical and perhaps most realistic reaction is lots of people not caring, and even rooting against the aliens. (Though I think “90%” is hyperbolic and too cynical.) The movie’s ask of the audience, though, is to listen and care, even if it requires reassessing your prior assumptions and beliefs or whatever.
I'll say also that the alien autopsy at the beginning affected me way more than I thought it would. The alien gibberish and suddenly you realize it's screaming.
A lot of the writing is goofy and it so often feels like the characters must have read the script in advance, but the filmmaking craft is such a delight after so much filth this summer. Shots like the hail into cereal, Blunt's face blending with the bald guy's head, and the reflection of Jane on the knife are better than anything in the Mario movie or Scary Movie 6.
People complain about the CGI and that is valid but the one that really threw me was the flashback where the little girl is walking with the animals to the house in the snow. It looked just like those Coca-Cola Christmas commercials. Part of the problem is the budget. For a summer blockbuster, 115 million is pretty low.
I liked how that winter flashback scene looked insofar as, like, it felt like a fairytale or something. “Coca-Cola Christmas commercial” is also a good way to describe it. Feels fanciful in a way that a child would be drawn into, and appropriately uncanny and unreal, etc. Dunno that it’s artificial looking intentionally vs for budgetary reasons, lol. But, it still works.
This film makes me want to watch Arrival again. I’m thinking about it the same way I thought about that.