My Review: The Fourth Kind (5/10)

¨An encounter in the first kind, that's when you see a UFO. The second kind is when you see evidence of it: crop circles, radiation. The third kind is when you make contact. But the fourth kind, there's nothing more frightening than the fourth. You see, that one is when they abduct you.¨

(5/10) This is probably one of the best lines of the movie because the rest of the dialogue is very poor, and the scares are few in this sci-fi thriller which is supposed to be based on true events. The film even has split screens showing actual ¨real¨ footage (similar to Paranormal Activity) from the events depicted in the movie, and combining them with the Hollywood production and set pieces on the other screen. So on one side you have Milla Jovovich playing a psychiatrist and then on the other you have a person claiming she is the real Abbey Tyler (which is the character Mila plays), and the scenes pretty much repeat itself on both sides. So both scenes seem to compete for your attention at the same time. The strange thing is that there is no information about this real person in any internet archives and Universal had to pay a fine for posting false claims that the film was based on these real life characters. There is no Abbey Tyler in the psychiatrist archives of Alaska so one can assume that all the information given in the movie is false (except the fact that there have been disappearances in the town of Nome, but nothing out of the ordinary). I guess director, Olatunde Osunsami, was trying to scare his audience by mixing these scenes, but it really didn`t work for me and I didn`t find the movie scary at all. The director is actually the person who is interviewing the ¨real¨ Abbey Tyler in the movie. The film doesn`t really answer any questions and you are left with a sense that something is missing. I expected so much more after viewing the trailers, but the entire film just felt like a 100 minute trailer because nothing is ever answered.

The Fourth Kind begins with Milla Jovovich talking to the camera and telling us that this film is based on true events that have occurred in the small town of Nome, Alaska where several people have disappeared and most cases haven`t been solved yet. She plays a psychologist named Abbey Tyler who has been studying several patients of hers who seem to share the same dream and sleeping disorders. They all dream that an owl is staring at them for hours, but something disturbing is happening to them while they dream and they can`t seem to remember what it is. This is where Dr. Tyler decides to hypnotize her patients and through these special sessions they discover new and hidden things from their dreams, but at the same time some terrible things begin to happen to her patients. Tyler, herself suffers from these dreams and has already lost her husband. Sheriff August (Will Patton) begins to suspect that Abbey is involved in all these strange occurrences and warns her not to continue hypnotizing her patients. But Abbey will do what it takes in order to find out what really happened to her husband. The night he was murdered, her daughter Ashley (Mia McKenna-Bruce) also lost her sight and her son Ronnie (Raphael Coleman) blames his mother for what has happened. Abel Campos (Elias Koteas) assists Dr. Tyler in these investigations and together they discover some disturbing things. The performances actually were pretty decent and they felt real, but the material wasn`t good enough. I enjoy Milla Jovovich much more in her kick-ass roles like in Resident Evil because she is much better making action films.

The story is told in non-linear fashion as we go back and forth while at the same time having several split screens where we see the actual ¨real¨ taped events in documentary form as the audio overlaps between these various scenes. The film begins with some promise, but it ends up becoming too repetitive as scene after scene we see more of the same events happening. It felt as though there was not enough material to make a two hour film so they had to repeat several shots in order to stretch the movie. I really don`t like these movies that rely too much on trying to scare the audience by saying that they are based on true events when actually most everything in the film is just made up. The Fourth kind went even a step too far by trying to add material that was supposed to be real footage but actually wasn`t. I didn`t find the film scary, but I have to admit it grabbed my attention at the beginning. The problem is that nothing is ever solved and we are left with the sense that something is missing. It is as if the director never was able to come up with a good ending so he decided to just finish the movie at any point. I don`t recommend this film although I know many people interested in UFO activity will certainly watch The Fourth Kind, although I doubt they will learn anything new from it.