The Arrival

The Arrival fulfills one of the classic functions of science fiction, which is to take a current trend and extend it to a possible (and preferably alarming) future. The Arrival gives its aliens credit for reasoning that we might almost be tempted to agree with. We're just finishing what you started, one of the aliens tells Zane, referring to the smokestacks, auto exhausts, rain forests and so on. What would have taken you 100 years will only take us 10. He, or it, has a point. Read full review

While Twohy has some fabulous technology at his disposal and uses it to great effect, the answer to that second question is obvious: He keeps us on the edge of our seats not by dazzling us with lights and sound (even if the sound is spectacular) but by tantalizing his audience with basic, well-wrought suspense. Read full review

While this particular film doesn't boast any radical or surprising ideas, it combines numerous familiar plot elements into a suspenseful, entertaining whole. Best of all, perhaps, is the realization that some thought went into writer/director David Twohy's script. This is not a dumb movie; in fact, with its heavy reliance upon real science, it's startlingly credible. Read full review

It's a strong, lean piece of writing that moves quickly. Nothing is wasted, and nothing happens the way you'd expect. Read full review

As a head-trip movie with a moral, The Arrival engages the mind almost as much as it messes with it. [31 May 1996, p.F]

A thoughtful, exceedingly well-produced science-fiction drama about a scientist (Charlie Sheen) who becomes convinced that he's received radio signals from alien beings. Trying to locate them, he runs into a lot of official government opposition, and his pursuit of the truth takes him (and us) to unexpected places. Sheen is not the most appealing of actors, particularly wearing a Fu Manchu beard, but director Twohy carries us through the story with high energy nonetheless. [31 May 1996, p.B]

Intelligent, scary (scorpions! lots of scorpions!) and full of the possibilities of scientific fact taken to far-reaching (but credible) extremes, The Arrival delivers more bang for the buck than its high-profile multiplex-mates. [31 May 1996, p.3]

A wonderful slice of pulp alien-invasion sci-fi with a dash of conspiracy thriller tossed in for good measure. It plays as a clever X-Files knockoff and as a funny camp classic all at the same time. Low budget sci-fi pictures like these are rarely this entertaining, or good for that matter. Read full review

The Arrival is no Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but it does provide a solid second choice at the multiplex. [31 May 1996, p.5E]

No masterpiece, but a decent rental prospect. Twohy works the Sci-fi genre well yet again. Read full review

This risible hokum cashes in on TV's The X Files and invasion mania, but what it lacks in sophistication (everything), it partly makes up for in sheer gall. Read full review

For better or for worse the movie belongs to Sheen, who does manage to generate enough intensity to hold writer-director David Twohy's unwieldy story together. [31 May 1996, p.D6]

Whip together TV's The Invaders and V. Fold in cult classic Enemy From Space and season with a dash of Species. The yield: an agreeable cocktail of paranoid sci-fi conventions that bubbles along energetically, despite surprisingly low-tech trappings Read full review

Goofy summer fun that makes Earth vs. the Flying Saucers look like Citizen Kane. Read full review

The plot, dealing with aliens infiltrating our world, still made as much sense as it possibly could, and the special effects guys really don't go to work until the last two reels. [31 May 1996, p.8]

A straight-faced updating of the 1950s space monster formula, film stars Charlie Sheen as the rogue scientist who battles E.T.s, uncovers government conspiracies and, most impressive of all, suppresses giggles when confronted with some of the silliest alien effects in memory. [03 June 1996, p.50]

A little less fascination with computer tricks, and a little more application of human intelligence could have done The Arrival a world of good. [31 May 1996]

The Arrival, like so many science-fiction films, begins as a promisingly eerie mixture of pseudo-scientific exposition and chilly paranoia. But once its plot has been bared, it turns into a muddled chase movie filled with glaring inconsistencies. Read full review

A hokey summer entertainment that is full of big machinery, satellite dishes du jour, long embarrassing close-ups and gaps in logic through which large UFOs could hurtle. No need to go into that here. Anyone who might enjoy The Arrival would be impatient with logic. Read full review

A few of the sequences are bad enough to be funny, especially the ones involving Sheen skulking around alien central in a red jump suit, falling down a lot, as if directed by Ed Wood. [31 May 1996, p.52]

The Arrival looks and feels awfully small and cheap. In that way, the movie does feel like those science-fiction classics of the ’50s. But back then, sweaty heroes didn’t utter lines of ’90s dialogue like ”I look like a can of smashed a–holes.” Read full review

In The Arrival, Charlie Sheen makes a startling discovery that, sadly, has nothing to do with the suspicion that he should have ended his flagging movie career ages ago. [31 May 1996, p.6G]