The Arrival makes good use of problems of today to scare us

The Arrival is the new Charlie Sheen movie about aliens and Earth. I thought, "Oh great, another space-aliens-take-over-the-world movie." What did I get? I got a "space-aliens-take-over-the-world movie." However, the plot of this movie really touches home and makes some great use of the problems that we have today.

The movie opens with a phenomenal film sequence. It's probably one of the best filmed sequences in years. If there is any perfect cinema out there, this 30 second opening is it. It shows a scientist, played by Lindsay Crouse, walking around a green field with flowers all around and a big, warm coat. She smells the flower and then says, "This shouldn't be here." We watch as the camera zooms out to show that the field is at the top of the world, in the middle of a glacier.

The movie is about Zane Ziminski (Charlie Sheen), a radio astronomer, who finds a signal from outer space. The spike on the meter peaks and he and his helper work to find out what it is exactly. When they take the tape to their boss (played by Ron Silver), he fires Zane and destroys the tape. Zane is bewildered but determined. He gets hired as a satellite repair man. He uses this job to hook all the satellites in a certain area to one computer.

The rest of the movie is mostly about the take over of Earth. The aliens claim that they are just speeding up the process of what we have already started. They want to turn Earth into a planet for their own species, which requires the atmosphere to be depleted so that the Earth heats to a temperature that is suitable. The aliens here are very odd, but cool. Their knees bend backwards (and after the film, your knees will hurt from watching it) and they have two flaps that cover their brain.

Their is a trick to the movie that I will not reveal. If you want to find it out, go read Roger Ebert's review. The trick is quite good and fools us into not knowing what is going on. It is a little confusing but in the end, it should be pretty clear.

The Arrival is rated PG-13 but it's not very harsh. There isn't much language that is offensive to many people, it has a nudity scene but you don't see much, and the violence is pretty subtle. The movie is scary though and should be avoided by little kids.