THE ARRIVAL (52)

Directed by: David Twohy

Starring: Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Crouse, Ron Silver

The Pitch: A scientist picks up an extraterrestrial signal but meets with opposition (and loses his job) when he tries to publicise his findings; can it be the aliens are already among us?

Theo Sez: Like TERMINAL VELOCITY (also written by Twohy), a pleasant surprise - in fact, thinking back to Sheen's beginnings as a thoroughly serious young man in Oliver Stone movies, one feels a certain relief that he's graduated to this kind of superior schlock. It's yet another variation on INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS, more implausible than most and rather perfunctorily plotted in its later stages (I've yet to figure out how our hero arranges for the chief alien to divulge his plans just as they're walking past the video camera), but also emphasising the elements of paranoia in the genre, in the manner of 80s action movies like THE STUFF and SOCIETY (or, of course, in the manner of THE X-FILES, which is the reason films like this are getting made right now). Neither the tightest nor the most original of movies (and not really sci-fi either) but unstoppably enjoyable. Basically, I've been a sucker for any story that takes its hero to exotic places on the trail of a mysterious clue since Scrooge McDuck was adventuring with Donald and the boys in the old Carl Barks comics.