STACK #148 Feb 2017

DVD&BD REVIEWS

visit stack.net.au

Close encounters of the lingual kind. ARRIVAL

Release Date: 22/02/17 Format:

TOP HITS

DVD & BD EXTRAS

Xenolinguistics: Understanding Arrival Eternal Recurrence: The Score

BD ONLY

Acoustic Signatures: The Sound Design

Nonlinear Thinking: The Editing Process Principles of Time, Memory and Language

Linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is recruited by a US military colonel (Forest Whitaker) after 12 shell-like spacecraft appear in seemingly random locations across the globe. The alien visitors’ intentions are unknown, and with China and Russia eager to fire the first shot, she faces a race against time to discover whether they are friend or foe.

JB HI-FI EXCLUSIVE

Alternative Slipcase Artwork

DID YOU KNOW...

A fully functioning, visual, alien language was created for the film, along with a “logogram bible,” which included over a hundred different, completely operative logograms – seventy-one of which are actually featured in the movie.

Working with a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner), Banks realises that the loss of her young daughter could hold the key to deciphering the alien language. Reducing cities and major landmarks to CGI rubble are not on the agenda here; Arrival is a film about big ideas not big effects, although it has those too. The sci-fi genre is at its best when exploring philosophical

themes and the human condition, and this haunting addition is as much about love, loss and the paths we choose in life as it is about making contact with an alien species. Denis Villeneuve’s films ( Incendies , Prisoners , Sicario )all possess a moody ambience, which translates well to science fiction – Blade Runner 2049 is in very capable hands. SH (See page 26)

FURTHER VIEWING

Contact

Cruising for a bruising. JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK

Release Date: 22/02/17

TOP HITS

Format:

EXTRAS

DVD & BD

Reacher Returns No Quarter Given: Rooftop Battle

BD ONLY

An Unexpected Family Relentless: On Location in Louisiana Take Your Revenge First: Lethal Combat Reacher in Focus: With Tom Cruise and Photographer David James Never Go Back is based on the eighteenth Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child. ‘One Shot’, the basis of the first film, Jack Reacher (2012), is the ninth book in the series.

Cops show up at a diner where a brawl’s gone down, with one guy taking down all comers. That guy is Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise), and he’s not the one who’ll be leaving the scene in handcuffs... A former US Army major, Reacher’s living a transient life as he tries to get things together. A dinner date with current major Susan Turner ( The Avengers ’ Cobie Smulders) may help him

DID YOU KNOW...

turn his life around, but when he discovers that she’s been accused of espionage and detained – and if that isn’t enough, he also learns of a possible ghost from his past – it’s time for this ex-military man to do his thing. This involves everything from going on the lam with Turner to prove her innocence, to a spot of teenager babysitting,

time in prison, and a rollicking rooftop rumble. If – despite innumerable Mission: Impossible flicks – you still can’t quite buy Cruise as an action hero, then Jack Reacher: Never Go Back isn’t likely to change your mind. But if you can open it a little, you’ll discover a disarming and often genuinely exciting action romp. AF (See page 28)

FURTHER VIEWING

Jack Reacher

FEBRUARY 2017

36

jbhifi.com.au