The Arrival

Thrilling film about mysterious events spread across the planet , being compellingly directed by nice filmmaker David Twohy . This is a mix of thrills , action , adventure , intrigue and extraterrestrial invasion of world doom and gloom ; add to that a really magnificent cast . The greatest danger facing our world has been the planet's best kept secret...until now . Zane (Charlie Sheen), an astronomer discovers intelligent alien life , as he picks up strange signals from outer space . Eerily soon after his discovery , Zane is fired by his boss (Ron Silver) . As strange sudden incidents altering life of an astronomer , leaving them stranded with no line of communication on a location in Mexico . But the aliens are keeping a deadly secret , and will do anything to stop Zane and his fiancée (Teri Polo) from learning it . Zane gathers evidence to support this theory but there are several enemies go after him .

This is a science fiction thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat . Exciting film packs intrigue , intense scenes , noisy action and astonishing suspense . The picture follows the wake of the 8os and 90s in ¨X file¨ style and invasion mania . Passable acting by Charlie Sheen as a radio astronomer who receives signal from a far planet , and gorgeous Teri Polo as his girlfriend . Enjoyable support cast , such as Richard Schiff as his best friend and assistant , Ron Silver as a nasty chief , Lindsay Crouse as a curious scientific , Leon Rippy as a hoodlum , among others . Appropriate and suspenseful musical score by Arthur Kempel . Atmospheric and colorful cinematography by Hiro Narita .

The motion picture was well written and directed by David Twohy . David is an expert writer and director of splendid Sci-Fi movies . As his first picture was the acceptable ¨Timescape¨ . He also wrote ¨Warlock¨, ¨Waterworld ¨, a script for ¨Alien 3¨ in 1988, but it was rejected . Back in May of 2000, Fox Studios once inquired for his availability to write and direct "AVP: Alien vs. Predator" , but turned down the offer due to scheduling conflicts . David subsequently directed ¨Below¨, the successful ¨Pich Black¨ and its sequel ¨ The chronicles of Riddick¨ .

I was a late getting to the theater to see 'The Arrival'. Then I had to go through the concession stand crowd. When I finally reached the theater -the screen was engrossed by a huge satellite disk and there was some guy talking. "Damn," I thought. "I just missed the start of the movie." It wasn't three seconds after that realization that I had another one. "This isn't the movie." It was a commercial for one of the large multi-billion dollar phone companies. Talk about false scares.

Some people have called 'The Arrival' a thinking man's science fiction movie. While the jury is still out on that, I will say it's not stupid either. It is however one more of those 'one man saves the world' flicks. Which are never terribly realistic, but on their own terms, entertain. Charlie Sheen plays Zane Zaminski. A smart, but soon-to-be paranoid astrophysicist who has the slithery Godian (Ron Silver) for a boss. One day watching the satellites some anomaly passes his screen. Suddenly the search is on. What was it? WHO was it? Not letting the subject go gets him fired from his job and deeper and deeper he journeys into the paranoia.

The Arrival is one part use your mind, two parts conspiracy theory. As Zane takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of things and find out who's involved and to what lengths they'll go to suppress everything. Soon we start to see elements straight out of the X Files. The story has it's own set of implausibilities, but things move at such a pace that there isn't much time to question them. Zane knows something is going on and the deeper he digs the more we find out. It's all about the ride. Could one man really stop such things from happening? Probably not, but that doesn't stop 'The Arrival' from being a fun time.

At least "The Arrival" doesn't fall into the car chases and gratuitous explosions category of sci-fi. It has some semblance of scientific reason, and some pretty original ideas. The vortex balls were an intriguing touch, and the gigantic satellite dish scenes quite effective. It is necessary to suspend disbelief on several occasions, but overall the film succeeds as entertainment. Having the kid along seemed like kind of a stretch as well. If you can look past the faults in logic, "The Arrival" is totally acceptable. If you are going to tear it apart for every little thing, then I suggest you look elsewhere. - MERK

This aliens vs. earth film succeeded because it added humor to the suspense story and Charlie Sheen did a great job adding to that with an expression-filled face that made he and this film fun to watch.

Story-wise, most of it made no sense as Sheen got out of one impossible scrap after another but good sci-fi special effects and suspense helped make the story interesting and fast-moving. You get caught up in the story and don't care if their are plenty of holes in it. It's also pretty tame, language-wise. Lindsay Crouse provides the female interest and Ron Silver the villain, a familiar role for him.

The film was popular enough to make a sequel, but that horrible. Don't waste your time on that one.

After reading some of the negative reviews here I almost didn't watch it. Glad I watched. As one reviewer said, it's a bit like an extended X-files episode. That's not a bad thing, especially today when most of what passes for sci-fi is little more than cowboys in space with both sides shooting at each other with "advanced" weapons that cannot hit the side of a barn.

The Premise here is aliens are on earth and using Climate change as cover for their plot to warm up the earth quickly (they like it hot) so they can displace us.

No need to detail all that happens, suffice it to say there are a few minor twists but no real surprises. Yet it flows along well, characters get just the amount of development they need and no more. No huge plot holes once you accept the premises that underlay the aliens being here in the first place.