There are some distinctive special effects: like the climax of Jeff Nichols's Midnight Special earlier this year, Arrival tries to give us a new visual twist on familiar ideas of the uncanny alien sublime. (filmcomment.com)
The Good Dinosaur is more humble than Pixar's typical fare, choosing to refine and riff on familiar ideas and themes rather than build new ones from the ground up and live on the cutting edge. (waytooindie.com)
Underlining their intimate, ineluctable connections, the film renders such familiar ideas in grand landscapes and excruciating details, revealing their strangeness for Christopher Johnson McCandless (Emile Hirsh). (popmatters.com)