Subject: REVIEW: THE ARRIVAL (1996)

From: [email-masked] (David N. Butterworth)
Date: 4 Jun 1996 13:09:09 GMT

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
[email-masked]