The Arrival

An alien-landing thriller dedicated to the proposition that even if extra-terrestrials are the scurvy planet-swiping scumbags we suspect - well, it's not as if we're keeping the place in such good nick ourselves. Sheen's a NASA boffin convinced an audio signal he's picked up is an alien transmission. Unfortunately, when he informs his boss, he finds himself on the wrong side of a mandatory personnel cutback - with apologies, of course, but we know no one as smooth as Silver can be trusted. Sure enough, after rigging up his neighbours' satellite dishes to his computer, meeting a scientist in Mexico investigating global-warming, and breaking into a secret energy installation in the jungle, Charlie finds things go deeper than anyone could've imagined. 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.