Subject: Retrospective: Arrival, The (1996)

From: Dragan Antulov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 18:50:31 -0000

THE ARRIVAL (1996)

A Film Review 
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003

Alien civilisations, for simple reason of being alien, might have 
morality completely different than our own and for them 
annihilation of humanity might not be such a bad thing. Even 
"politically correct" Hollywood accepted this, and in mid 1990s this 
resulted in alien invasion films, best known of them being 
INDEPENDENCE DAY. Roughly in the same time with 1996 
spectacle, David Twohy directed THE ARRIVAL, science fiction 
thriller using the same concept.

The protagonist of the film is Zane Zaminski (played by Charlie 
Sheen), government-employed radio-astronomer who has just 
discovered signals proving existence of alien civilisations. He 
immediately reports his findings to his boss Phil Gordian (played by 
Ron Silver) only to be unpleasantly surprised by being fired and 
having proof of his discovery destroyed. Zaminski doesn't give up 
and uses his new job of satellite television technician to create radio-
telescope of his own. He discovers not only alien civilisations signals 
but also someone communicating with aliens from Mexico. He 
travels there to investigate and meets Ilana Green (played by Lindsay 
Crouse), scientist who had recently discovered huge increase in 
global temperatures - a phenomenon that can't be explained by 
industrial pollution or natural causes. 

THE ARRIVAL was made with budget significantly lower to 
INDEPENDENCE DAY, but the lack of visual splendour or huge cast 
was compensated with a David Twohy's script,  incredibly intelligent 
for 1990s Hollywood standards. Whole alien invasion plot is 
presented as low-key affair, a perfidious plan that could be noticed 
only by the most brightest and perceptive of all humans. This 
allowed Twohy to create atmosphere of anxiety, fear and paranoia by 
showing the events from the protagonist's perspective and allowing 
the audience to build the disturbing images in their heads. Another 
reason why the plot, despite some of logical flaws, works is in its 
major element being borrowed from the real life newspaper 
headlines - global warming. The pace of the film is deliberately slow 
in the beginning, but it all pays off in the second half of the film when 
action elements come as more natural elements of the plot. The 
special effects are also very good. The acting is also quite good, 
although Charlie Sheen is at times hard to swallow as brilliant 
scientist; the scenes in which he has to be an ordinary man in 
extraordinary situations are much better. THE ARRIVAL has some 
problems with unnecessary subplot involving Zaminski's girlfriend 
and the ending is somewhat disappointing, but the general 
impression of this film is such that it represents a rare 1990s example 
of Hollywood taking science fiction seriously.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

Review written on June 4th 2003

Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society

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X-RT-RatingText: 7/10