- Title: The Arrival
- IMDb: link
Whether or not 1996’s The Arrival works for you or not will likely boil down to whether or not you can accept the premise of Charlie Sheen as a scientist who stumbles into, and becomes lost in, a vast conspiracy of aliens on Earth altering the planet for their own ends. It’s B-movie sci-fi to be sure, but it’s held up fairly well over the years even if the film struggles at times balancing the higher-minded scientific ideas with the rampant paranoia.
The film opens with Zane (Sheen) and his buddy Charlie (a beardless Richard Schiff) detecting a extraterrestrial signal from space. Rather than get publicity and a promotion, Charlie is reassigned and Zane is fired and blackballed within the industry with his former boss (Ron Silver, in one of his slimier performances) leaking the idea that Zane falsified data.
Zane’s journey to uncover the truth will involve creating his own listening post by tying together several residential satellite dishes into a new array and following the mystery to Mexico where the answers he finds reveal a vast conspiracy with nothing less than the fate of the planet at stake.
The Arrival is one of those films that ramps up the paranoia to 11 and then pushes Zane on a journey where he becomes uncertain who, if anyone, he can trust. Other notable performances include Teri Polo as Zane’s girlfriend, Lindsay Crouse as another scientist in Mexico investigating a separate thread to the same mystery, and Tony T. Johnson as the neighbor’s son intrigued by Zane’s one. However, at least one of these people isn’t who they seem. Conspiracy nuts should love this film.
Overshadowed by Independence Day’s release that same summer, The Arrival was a box office disappointment. However, the film did manage to earn new life on home video, cable, and eventually streaming. It also led to a straight-to-video sequel which I’m not sure any human being remembers. I don’t know that time has affected the film in any way. If it worked for you in 96, The Arrival will likely still do so today.
The new 4K collects previous special features from various editions while also including new featurettes from the film including interviews with writer/director David Twohy and Crouse and a look at the alien vortex artifact and the special effects used in the film.
