CHAOS THEORY

"3 Body Problem," on Netflix.

- INKOO KANG

Early in “3 Body Problem,” the new Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s acclaimed science-fiction trilogy, intelligent life from another corner of the universe decides that a spectacle is required to get humanity’s attention. On a cloudless night, the stars brighten, then flicker on and off, as if a kid were playing with a light switch, transmitting a series of numbers. Two physicists—one high and thus mesmerized, the other terrified— watch the phenomenon from a Gothic courtyard in Oxford, England. The next day, the stoner, Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo), chalks the experience up to an elaborate hoax; the rest of the world also saw the stars twinkle in code, but the celestial blinks went undetected by Earth’s most powerful telescopes. The otherworldly signal may have been a message just for Saul’s companion, a nanomaterials researcher named Auggie Salazar (Eiza González) who’s had a glowing countdown emblazoned across her field of vision for days. The digits in the sky match the ones she now sees every time she opens her eyes.