Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Zane Ziminski is an astrophysicist who receives a message that seems to have extraterrestrial origins. Eerily soon after his discovery, Zane is fired. He then embarks on a search to determine the origins of the transmission that leads him into a Hitchcockian labyrinth of paranoia and intrigue.
The Arrival is a solid mid-90s sci-fi paranoia thriller with a genuinely clever environmental angle on alien invasion — the extraterrestrials are accelerating global warming to terraform Earth, which gives it a fresher ideological hook than most contemporary alien films. Charlie Sheen's performance is functional but unremarkable, and the supporting cast is similarly uneven. Visually it's competent with some inventive practical effects on a modest budget, though nothing particularly distinctive. The ending deflates much of the tension built earlier, feeling rushed and unsatisfying. Its conception is reasonably original for its era without being truly singular.