The Arrival

A paranoid radio astronomer stumbles across some aliens talking across his airwaves and is immediately relieved of his duties from his superiors. After finding his partner murdered, the suspicious man follows the extra-terrestrial signal down to Mexico, and finds something beyond even his spectacular imagination: an apparent alien invasion preparing to take over the world.

Think John Carpenter’s THEY LIVE mixed into a less-pretentious version of CONTACT, and you’ve got yourself a pretty neat ALIEN thrill-ride featuring a pretty solid story, good special effects and enough twists and turns to keep you interested all the way through. I will be the first to admit that I never thought I’d see the day that Charlie Sheen would ever make a good movie again, but boy was I wrong, because this movie is actually quite good, and intelligent! It’s one of those movies that fell through the cracks in the theatres (Unfortunately it graced the big screen right around the time that the vastly inferior INDEPENDENCE DAY made its tragic debut), but should definitely be caught on video, if you are any kind of sci-fi fan. Charlie Sheen is perfect as the “guy caught in over his head” in a story which moves along at a decent pace and actually provides some real suspense. It probably could have used a more powerful ending, but all in all, I had a pretty cool time watching this flick. If you dig science-fiction, want to see Charlie Sheen in a good role for once and enjoy the X-Files and their alien conspiracy theories, there is no reason why you should not be thoroughly entertained by this intense thriller. But don’t take my word for it, Siskel & Ebert also gave it “two thumbs up!” : )

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian