Charlie Sheen's Only Sci-Fi Movie Was A Box Office Flop That's Still Worth Watching

Throughout his tumultuous career, Charlie Sheen has never really embraced the sci-fi movie, and if you watch his only attempt at it — unless you count the 1986 "The Wraith" too — as a radio astronomer in David Twohy's big-screen feature debut, 1996's "The Arrival," you instantly understand why. He's just not that guy. What I mean is that playing a geek, nerd, or smarty-pants character never looked good on Sheen since he's always been the cool kid, the macho womanizer, or a rebel at heart. And no matter what the "Pitch Black" director throws at him in this goofy sci-fi-paranoia-thriller hybrid, he can never give a good enough reason why he was cast here in the first place.

The plot follows Sheen's Zane Zaminsky — an astronomer obsessed with detecting alien life so much that he's willing to ditch a booty call from his bombshell girlfriend (Teri Polo) for it — who records a mysterious extra-terrestrial radio signal at work and practically gets fired for it. His boss at NASA, Gordi ("Timecop's" devilish Ron Silver), destroys the tape immediately after he lets Zane go, blaming budget cuts, and Zane quickly puts two and two together upon learning that Gordi put a word out to destroy his career by accusing him of concocting preposterous lies.

But Zane is determined to come up with a plan and make his own homemade telescope (assembled from various other satellite dishes) to detect the signal again. And before long, his conspiracy theory becomes very real when shapeshifting aliens turn up to stop him from discovering their hostile plan to destroy Earth.

If I had to say one thing in favor of "The Arrival," it'd be that it's a delightfully bonkers dumpster fire despite (or because of) its complete lack of self-awareness. It's littered with unintended camp that comes from outdated dialogue, atrocious CGI (which will make you chuckle), and an almost awe-inspiring tonal mismatch that changes genres as often as a chameleon changes its colors. From standard conspiracy thriller to family-friendly sci-fi to alien invasion flick, you never know what "The Arrival" will throw at you (or what it wants to be exactly), which at least keeps the picture from becoming utterly tedious and one-dimensional throughout its two-hour runtime.

If you don't take it too seriously (you can't when there's a scene showing bathtubs falling through several floors in a hotel while Sheen is naked), "The Arrival" certainly offers some nostalgic fun to be had. And I must say, despite its cheap and limited visual effects, the design of the backwards-kneed aliens is far from the worst and most uninteresting I've ever seen. Still, it's easy to see why Twohy's feature bombed at the box office on release, making only $14 million and change against its $25 million budget, and got buried rather quickly.

Except for its star, everything in it resembles more of a TV movie than an aspiring sci-fi epic meant for the big screen. I mean, John Carpenter's overlooked 1984 alien movie looks like a million bucks compared to "The Arrival," which came out 12 years later. That should tell you everything you need to know about Charlie Sheen's only sci-fi flick.