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At the Movies

 A movie is only as strong as its villain, and "Arcadian" has a hall-of-fame "baddie." It's an alien modeled on "Goofy," from the Disney cartoons. The alien has a kind of hood, like a snake, and the hood flies up to reveal a series of slimy heads, which convulse (again and again and again) right before the kill.


The alien also has a kind of extendable fingernail; it inches forward, silently, approaching your face, while you sleep.

For years, in "Arcadian," the aliens have been living in the darkness, in the woods, coming out just at night. Evidence suggests that--recently--the aliens have learned to burrow underground. Soon, they will be invading homes via soil, underneath the cement, and then your locks will be useless.

You can tell that I love the aliens, but I also love their nemesis, Nicolas Cage. Cage plays "Paul," a devoted dad who takes sole responsibility for his kids' idiocy. (When one kid betrays the other kid, Paul says, "This isn't exactly your doing. It's mine.") Paul needs to rely on shorthand, because he is living through the apocalypse; his favorite impatient remark, to his kids, is, simply, "That isn't helping."

Even when semi-comatose, Paul remains interesting; on his deathbed (or pseudo-deathbed), he is still hatching suggestions for the war against the aliens.

This isn't Chekhov, but it held my attention. It's nice to see Nicolas Cage taking big swings, thirty years after "Leaving Las Vegas." Recommended.

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