THE ARRIVAL
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1996 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Directed by David Twohy Rating: **1/2 (Maltin scale)
A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1996 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Some might find it hard to take Charlie Sheen seriously these days.
>From his pumped up, exaggerated roles in HOT SHOTS! and its wackier sequel, HOT SHOTS! PART DEUX, to his spotty appearance on the TV hit FRIENDS, saying that Sheen's recent performances have bordered on self-parody would be like saying TWISTER is a movie about the weather. But it's his earnest performance in THE ARRIVAL that raises this extraterrestrial flick above your average We Are Not Alone science fiction thriller.
Sheen stars as geekazoid radio astronomer Zane Ziminski--where do they get these names?--doing "dish time" from a secluded NASA-funded outpost, tracking F-class stars and listening for signs of "non-Earth based" life.
It's like STAKEOUT with a glossier Sheen.
For the most part a radio astronomer's career is not an eventful one... Until one night, when tracking star Wolf 336, 14.6 light years away, Zane and his co-geek astronomer buddy get a "spike" on their oscillator, and look out boys cuz it's a big one!
But Zane's gaga enthusiasm is quickly quashed by his icy, unsympathetic boss Gordian (played by icy, unsympathetic Ron Silver, similarly corrupt in TIME COP and BLUE STEEL). Gordian tells Zane "If you can't confirm it, it doesn't exist." Forty-two seconds of non-random, non-Earth-based signal doesn't amount to a hill o' beans if it doesn't repeat itself. And, to add insult to injury, Zane shortly learns that his position at the Jet Propulsion Lab is being eliminated-government cut-backs and all that. Sounds like a cover-up to me. And Zane thinks so too.
So, with the help of some playful jump-cutting techniques, Zane signs up as a satellite television repairperson and rigs up an elaborate scheme to confirm his There's Something Out There notion, uncovering an equally elaborate conspiracy of global warming and master plans.
Oh yes... And aliens.
Lindsay Crouse plays eco-botanical geologist weather person thing Ilana Green, whose path crosses Zane's down in Central America (she's concerned about thermonuclear temperatures or some such, and there's a creative opening sequence in which you wonder why she's wearing such a big coat). Zane has managed to trace the radiowaves to somewhere in Mexico: "one signal sky-based, one signal earth-based." Zane might look more like the rocket scientist but even I could figure out what that means! But by the time he gets to the radio station broadcasting the signal... Well, it's toast. Sounds like a cover-up to me! Yep. Zane's with me on this one.
And from there Zane finally stumbles upon the whole enchilada, when we finally get to see the little green men for the first time--no "flashlight fingers or metal teeth" here, but anatomically correct aliens of the illegal variety.
The large-scale special effects are decent overall, but it's the little ones that add more to this movie: the aliens' imaginative--if under-utilized--dialect, for example, and the spinning copper sphere which clears a room faster than anything in TWISTER. And, of course, Sheen's energetic, bug-eyed performance, technically not an effect but special nonetheless. Writer and first-time director David Twohy (he wrote the under-appreciated WATERWORLD) keeps the production running smoothly, even if his "the polar icecaps are melting" theorizing is starting to sound a little too familiar.
The buzz on the street is that THE ARRIVAL is a slight, under-hyped precursor of the Really Big summer alien invaders picture, ID4. But if you're already disappointed by the first wave of summer blockbusters, you could do far worse than to check out this competent piece of S.F.
-- David N. Butterworth, Director Office of Information Technology UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
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