Can someone explain? I honestly felt like I wasted ~2 hours of my life watching it. Am I saying the movie is "bad"? No. I just don't understand why reviews are so positive for a movie that seemed devoid of any actual plot or substance. The visuals were amazing, in my honest opinion and the audio (effects, soundtrack, et cetera) was superb, but all of that is irrelevant when the movie is just so lacking. Did the themes and subtle hints just fly over my head? What am I missing here? The focus on linguistics and communication is something I liked, as I've interest in both of those things, but anything other than that failed to really keep my attention. The last few acts of the movie seem like they're loaded with asspulls and other plot contrivances too, but again, maybe I'm just missing something... Tl;dr - as the title says, why is Arrival so well received?