[year/rating] 1996 PG-13 [genre] SciFi Conspiracy [director] David Twohy [starring] Charlie Sheen Lindsay Crouse Richard Schiff Ron Silver

Tagline

The greatest danger facing our world has been the planet's best kept secret... until now.

Summary Capsule

Aliens are sneakily invading the earth and turning it into their own sauna. Charlie Sheen's beard intervenes.

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Justin's Rating: Go Charlie, go Charlie go!
Justin's Review: This is a movie about Charlie Sheen and his goatee. Sure, there are aliens and badness, but that could never come between a man and his meticulously trimmed facial hair. While normally it just serves the purpose of allowing the wearer to blend in at trendy suburbanite bars, under duress the goatee can become a veritable powerhouse of defensive mechanisms. For instance, if a really cute girl tries to kiss Zane (Sheen) and she turns out to be an alien, the goatee leaps into action and gives her/it a serious beard burn. Later, when Zane is lost in the Sahara desert and is starving for sustenance, he can survive from the food crumbs and collected sweat pooled up in his goatee. It's a symbiotic love story!

"This is a movie about Charlie Sheen and his goatee."

The Arrival is more or less the entire run of the X-Files boiled down to a snappy little movie. Radio astronomer Zane discovers proof of extra terrestrials, but this discovery sends his life plummeting into the can. All excited and wild-eyed, he's got the makings of an internet raving conspirasist, except that Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet. In the space of a day, Zane loses his job, his credibility, his girlfriend, and his friends. Looks like a few people want to keep his discovery on the hush and hush, eh? When a man has no place left to go, he's got the rest of the film to vindicate himself.

Zane builds a homemade radio antenna and enlists the help of a young ethnic sidekick in order to give him an excuse for blatant exposition. Together, they reacquire the signal, which leads them to the alien's base of operation: Mexico!

Yup, thought there was nothing to fear from our neighbors south of the border, other than the rampaging Montezuma's Revenge? Boy have you been duped. Zane discovers that the aliens have already invaded and are using the thousands of Taco Bell joints to provide employment for the crowds of immigrants. What happens next? Well, we break the aliens' backward kneecaps, that's what!

It's nothing shocking or new, but I've always had a slight soft spot for The Arrival, possibly because of the goatee, and possibly because the aliens are so incredibly lame (their methods of assassination include falling bathtubs, carbon monoxide poisoning, a spinning ball, and scorpions) that it's a joy to see them get what's coming to them. Heh. Dumb aliens.

Ensign Red Shirt, reporting for death! I mean, duty! Joan Rivers! You've let yourself go! More than normal! "No one will believe you, except the people on the internet. But they don't count!"

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• I want those sunglasses/welder's goggles the lady has at the beginning of the film. Zane's glasses are pretty cool too.
• Wondering who is Zane's lab assistant in the observatory? That's West Wing's Richard Schiff without his now-trademark beard!
• SETI doesn't search the FM band... usually
• Has Ron Silver EVER played a good guy?
• You too can build your own radio observatory with a few satellite dishes and some Radio Shack parts!
• Don't be sitting on the john nekkid when a falling bathtub decides to carve a new hole in your ceiling
• Aliens aren't very inventive in variations of disguises
• They should sell those alien balls that make everything in a room disappear - we'd never have to clean again!
• Hehe... bird got sucked in!

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Don't think so.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

The Arrival has a sequel, the direct-to-video The Second Arrival. It stars Patrick Muldoon, and is generally a lousy flick (what would you expect?).

Groovy Quotes

Calvin: I don't know why I put up with this. Oh, yes I do. Because I let you drive. I'm a right chair hostage.

Zane: Wolf 336, you are definitely howling! [Zane and Calvin howl]

Zane's plaque: "A Man's reach should exceed his grasp, or else what's Heaven for?" - Robert Browning

Zane: What happens at ten o'clock?
Kiki: She passes out on cough syrup.

Zane: What's your point? There's always something that gives me false hope? That I'm wasting my life?
Char: I didn't say that. But you know, it's interesting that you did.

Zane: She's out of my bed, but still in my head.

Phil Gordian: If you can't tend to your own planet, you don't deserve to live here.

Char: Why'd they leave?
Zane: They didn't leave.
Char: How do you know?
Zane: Because we aren't dead yet.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Contact
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• ID4