The Arrival A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1996 By Michael Redman
***(out of ****)
Starting off the summer's science fiction onslaught, Charlie Sheen stars in a quasi-intelligent fifties-retro alien invasion conspiracy. (How many oxymorons can you find in that sentence?)
Sheen is a nerdish radio astronomer in the SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program and spends most of his time sitting around awaiting signals that would indicate sentient beings out there. It's a lonely life until one night the indicators go off the scale.
Sheen takes the tape to his superior (Ron Silver) who dismisses it, fires him and destroys the tape. The conspiracy begins and the plot thickens. When our hero's co-worker meets an untimely demise shortly after G-Men types confiscate all the data, it's certain that there's something going on and we don't know what it is.
In a surprise to no one, Sheen obsessively takes on the mystery. The investigation takes him to Mexico in some of the best and heavily textured scenes in the film. Here he runs into a scientist (Lindsay Crouse) also on a quest: hers, to find the cause of localized global warming.
This is not an effects film but they are good enough, if not spectacular. Suitably alien aliens and a spectacular underground building work well and even the goofy copper ball weapon isn't dumb enough to wreck the tale.
The movie is an updated version of about a zillion B films from 35 years ago. Evil aliens invade to take over the earth. One man finds out and has to defeat them by himself. The ETs conspire to stop him. He discovers the one thing that will defeat them (germs, light, electricity or ...) Sheen's speech to the intruders at the finale is copied from every second-rate sf film of that time.
Oddly enough this is an asset, not a problem although the movie does have its defects. It seems to take forever for the story to come together. The science is a bit shaky. The most disappointing is that fascinating characters (Crouse, Sheen's girlfriend, his assistant, a street-wise black kid) show up only to disappear and then re-appear later for just a few minutes, never staying around long enough to fulfill their potential.
Good fun, enough action for the short-attention-spaners and plenty of story.
[This appeared in the 6/6/96 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at redman@bvoice.com] -- mailto:redman@bvoice.com This week's film review at http://www.bvoice.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
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