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Thursday, December 26, 2019

Quick Takes: The Arrival

I avoided seeing The Arrival (David Twohy, 1996)  for literal decades because of its middling reputation, so perhaps it's simply my low expectations that informed my surprisingly positive response to what turned out to be, essentially, a 1950s SF film that was somehow inexplicably made in the 1990s. Sheen is about as believable as he needs to be as an astrophysicist, and the conspiratorial elements are suspenseful enough to maintain audience interest.

It's the terraforming/global warming aspect that gives The Arrival some additional interest, and gives the film extra relevance today. At one point, one of the aliens tells Sheen's character "If you can't take care of your planet, you don't deserve it." Unfortunately, I think this line will take on additional prescience with every passing year.

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