The Arrival (1996 film)

''The Arrival'' is a 1996 science fiction horror film written and directed by David Twohy and starring Charlie Sheen, and co-starring Lindsay Crouse, Ron Silver, Teri Polo, and Richard Schiff. Sheen stars as radio astronomer Zane Zaminsky who discovers evidence of intelligent alien life and quickly gets thrown into the middle of a conspiracy that turns his life upside down.

Plot

Zane Zaminsky, a radio astronomer working for SETI, discovers an extraterrestrial radio signal from Wolf 336, a star 14 light-years from Earth. Zane reports this to his supervisor, Phil Gordian, at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but Gordian dismisses the findings. Zane soon finds that he has been fired because of supposed budget cuts and is blacklisted, preventing him from working at other telescopes. Taking a job as a television satellite dish installer, he creates his own telescope array using his customers' dishes in the neighborhood, operating it secretly from his attic with the help of his young next-door neighbor, Kiki.

Zane relocates the radio signal, but it is drowned out by a terrestrial signal from a Mexican radio station. Zane attempts to consult his former coworker, Calvin, but finds that he has just died, purportedly from carbon monoxide poisoning. Zane travels to Mexico and finds that the radio station was burnt to the ground. Searching the town, he comes across a recently constructed power plant, where he helps NCAR climatologist Ilana Green protect her atmospheric analysis equipment from the plant's overzealous security forces. While in custody at the plant, Ilana explains that the Earth's temperature has recently and abruptly risen a few degrees, melting the polar ice and shifting the ecosystem. She is investigating the power plant, one of several recently built across the developing world, that appears to be the cause of the increase. The two are released but without Ilana's equipment, and Zane notices that one of the guards looks identical to Gordian. As Zane and Ilana regroup, Gordian has agents posing as gardeners release a device in Zane's attic that consumes all of Zane's equipment. Zane leaves Ilana to further investigate the power plant, and scorpions planted in her room kill her.

Zane discovers that the plant is a front for an underground base for aliens, who are able to infiltrate human society with an external skin, and that the base expels large amounts of greenhouse gas. He is caught but escapes back into the nearby town and attempts to convince the local inspector of the situation. However, alien agents bring Ilana's body to the police station, making Zane a suspect in her death, and he sneaks back into the United States. He accosts Gordian on the JPL grounds, forcing him to admit that the aliens are trying to raise the Earth's temperature to kill off humans and make the planet hospitable for themselves. Zane secretly records the conversation, and once Gordian discovers the recording, he sends agents to stop Zane.

Zane returns home to find his attic devoid of equipment. With the help of his girlfriend Char and Kiki, he travels to a radio astronomy array, hoping to uplink and beam his tape to a news satellite, but Gordian and his agents soon disable the telescope/satellite controls from the main building. Zane leaves the tape with Kiki and instructs him to transmit it when he gives the order. He and Char sneak over to the telescope's base and barricade themselves in the control room. Zane makes the necessary adjustments and tells Kiki to activate the tape, but Kiki reveals himself to be an alien agent, and he opens the door to admit Gordian, who confiscates the tape.

Gordian and his agents break down the door to the satellite control room with a van, but Zane freezes them with liquid nitrogen. As he works to free the tape stuck in Gordian's frozen jacket, one of the agents drops a sphere which starts to engulf the room. Gordian begins to defrost and tries to grab Zane's arm, but Zane smashes off Gordian's arm with a fire axe. Zane and Char escape through the radio telescope station's access shaft, exiting safely onto the collapsed dish before the device implodes most of the base. Below them, they see Kiki, and Zane tells him to tell the aliens that he will soon broadcast this tape. In the film's epilogue, Zane's conversation with Gordian is broadcast across the globe.

Cast

* Charlie Sheen as Zane Zaminsky, a SETI researcher
* Lindsay Crouse a Ilana Green, a scientist researching the effect of greenhouse gases in the Arctic
* Teri Polo as Char, an investment banker and Zane's girlfriend
* Richard Schiff as Calvin, Zane's colleague at SETI
* Leon Rippy as DOD #1, the lead agent hired by Phil
* Tony T. Johnson as Kiki, a neighbor of Zane's
* Ron Silver as Phil Gordian, Zane and Calvin's supervisor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
** Silver also appears as a Mexican guard whom Zane meets in the fictional city of San Marsol

Production

Prior to the film's release, the working title was ''Shockwave''. Filming took place primarily in Mexico, with additional scenes filmed at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory. The alien creatures were all digitally created for the movie by Pacific Data Images. Charlie Sheen had previously collaborated with David Twohy on ''Terminal Velocity'', and Twohy had written the main role intending for Sheen to star.

Release

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics; at review aggregation website, Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of 66% based on reviews from 35 critics, with an average score of 6.2/10, and its consensus states that "''The Arrival'' is stylish and inventive and offers a surprisingly smart spin on the alien invasion genre."

Box office

The film was a commercial failure. It only grossed US$14 million in the North American domestic market, against an estimated production budget of US$25 million. Part of this was due to high-visibility marketing campaign for the release of ''Independence Day'' just over a month later, which went on to become a box office phenomenon. However, ''The Arrival'' had a rather successful run internationally, partly because Charlie Sheen still maintained high popularity worldwide at the time.

Home media

A Blu-ray version of the film was released April 21, 2009. Unlike the laserdisc release, the Blu-ray version includes no special features. The laserdisc release included commentary, documentaries and alternative endings not included in the Blu-ray or DVD releases.

Sequel

A sequel, ''Arrival II'', was released on November 6, 1998.

Video game

'' The Arrival'' was released on Windows in 1997.

See also

* List of films featuring extraterrestrials