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Customer Reviews of Arrival II [Region 2]

FOR RABID SCI-FI FANS ONLY...
I love sci-fi films, and "The Arrival", the prequel to this film, was simply sensational. So, when this film was released I had high hopes. Alas, as with most sequels, my expectations were not met. It is simply not in the same league as its predecessor. There are reasons why this film went straight to video. It plays almost as if it were a made for TV movie.<
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>Notwithstanding this, I still found this movie moderately enjoyable, despite its many and obvious shortcomings. You can usually tell that the sequel in not on part with the original when none of the original cast are in it. Instead, the viewer gets handsome Patrick Muldoon in the role of Jack Addison, Zane's estranged brother, picking up where Zane left off in the fight against alien invasion. Jack teams up with investigative reporter Bridget Riordan, played with energetic enthusiasm by Jane Sibbert. Together they seek to foil the sinister alien conspiracy that threatens mankind.<
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>Lacking the more intelligent script and better production values of "The Arrival", the sequel still manages to entertain. Borrowing some of the original themes and types of special effects found in "The Arrival", it is played out as more of an action film with a lot of chase scenes, as if hoping that this will distract the discerning viewer from noticing the obvious plot holes. While I did not enjoy this film nowhere nearly as much as the original, I forgave it some of its faux pas and managed to take it at face value and enjoy it. All in all, it is a moderately entertaining, sci-fi film, notwithstanding the grade B acting and some of the cheesy production walues. In fact, in one scene, a glass door begins shattering before a body hits it. Rent this film, rather than buy it. If you are not a rabid sci-fi fan, deduct one star from my rating.

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A disappoint sequel to an interesting Sci Fi thriller
In "The Arrival" writer-director David Twohy comes up with aliens as the culprits behind global warming. Unfortunately the 1998 sequel, "The Arrival II," makes it clear from the start that things are going to go awry. We get a news report that Zane, the hero of the original (played by Charlie Sheen) has died under mysterious circumstances while hiding out with the Eskimos. Every since Newt and Hicks were killed during the opening credits of "Aliens3" I have a visceral reaction to similar attempts to clear the decks for the new characters in the new film. However, it turns out that before his death Zane sent packets of information about the alien menace to a few key individuals, including his half-brother, Jack Addison (Patrick Muldoon). He has to be a blood relation because that makes things personal as opposed to merely being concerned with the fate of the world. Those who received the packages from beyond gathered in a meat locker, where Jack meets reporter Bridget Riordan (Jane Sibbett), and Professor Nelson Zarcoff (Michael Sarrazin). It looks like we might be assembling a team of intelligent people in key positions who will be able to work together to stop the menace. But, no, this is going to be primarily a chase film. <
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>The biggest problem with this sequel is that once you understand what the aliens can do and where this script has them embedded in the government, then it is really game over, they win, hope you use really heavy sun screen in the world to come. But on a more intimate level as much as the first film plays fair with the science and the audience, this one insists on yanking our chains. In the first film there is a wonderful sequence where Zane, denied access to radio telescopes, creates his own by hooking up neighborhood satellite dishes that he can use in the dead of night when their owners are asleep. This might be nonsense, but in the context of the film it works. In this one Jack is a computer hacker who can work his magic on the alien computer when in "reality" he would be lucky to figure out how to turn it on let alone do significant programming. <
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>This was Mark David Perry's first script and given the detail and flair of Twohy's original what we have here just pales in comparison, even with a gratuitous nude scene thrown into the mix early on. There is not much the actors can do with this mess and there are few times in the film when they come close to catching the appropriate emotions of the moment since the script keeps insisting they be a step behind in figuring out what is happening. You would be better off just watchning "The Arrival" twice than checking out this one, unless you get the DVD that not only has both movies but has both of them on one side (I think it is because they knew that if it was on the other side it would only see the light of the laser once and then never again).