REVIEW: The Fourth Kind

STARRING: Milla Jovovich View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 11/13/09 DATE SCREENED: 10/20/09 The Verdict SUCKS - Don't Waste Your Time

For those of you that don’t know, there are supposedly four classifications of alien encounters. The First Kind is a UFO sighting. The Second Kind is collecting evidence of the UFO. The Third Kind is contact with Extra Terrestrials. The Fourth Kind is alien abduction. The film The Fourth Kind claims to be based on “actual case studies” that “prove” alien abductions. Let me make this clear right way – there is no such thing as actual case studies that prove alien abductions. But I was curious to see if the film was well done enough to convince people in the audience that there is such footage. Some people actually believe Paranormal Activity is real footage, and that has led that film to become a huge hit.

The Fourth Kind centers on Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich), a psychologist in the small town of Nome, Alaska. It seems this town’s residents have disappeared under mysterious circumstances since back in the ‘60s. In the present day, Dr. Tyler begins to see a string of traumatized patients who being to detail similar incidents of alien abduction while under hypnosis. Throughout the film we see dramatizations mixed with “actual archival footage”. This means we see interviews with the “real” Dr. Abigail Tyler and footage of her patients interspersed with interviews of Milla as Dr. Tyler and other actors playing her patients. Eventually Dr. Tyler herself is on the couch with her own alien abduction story to tell.

In theory it is a good idea to creep people out with this idea of mixing spooky "actual footage" into a movie. But in this case the execution is horrible. There is not one thing in this movie that convinced me it could be real. The very first interview with the “real” pale & lifeless Dr. Tyler felt like I was watching an actress. The “archival footage” of people under hypnosis goes way too far and becomes too dramatic to be authentic. As I sat there in the theater, bored out of my mind, I wondered to myself if anyone in the theater was actually buying into any of this. My question was answered when during one of the more ridiculous segments of “actual footage” of a guy floating, someone yelled out "this is bull s@#$". After another ridiculous scene people started laughing. You’d have to be pretty stupid to believe any of the “real footage”. This will not go down alongside Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity as that rare scary movie that people believed could be real. The trailer is creepier than the entire movie. This movie really sucks… don’t waste your time.