Movie Review: The Fourth Kind

Sci-fi films have a long history of dealing with the themes of alien abduction and invasion. Ranging widely in quality, some are silly (Men in Black and The Arrival) or have been offered up for television (the James Earl Jones-starring The UFO Incident, Spielberg’s Taken, the controversial Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction, the X-Files, along with both the original and current V miniseries).

Many are done very dramatically and serve their purpose well: Signs, the Alien series, War of the Worlds, E.T., and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Some are done in a more matter of fact way such as Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Fire in the Sky, where stuff happens and it’s up to you to decide if it’s believable based on your suspension of disbelief.

When a filmmaker wants to present you with “facts” and is trying to make a case study, he or she had better come up with a great way to present these or risk polarizing the audience. While director Olatunde Osunsanmi has come up with a brilliant idea for his use of piecing together "real" footage he completely undermines any kind of effect by having the “live” events unfold with a split screen of dramatization at the exact same time.

Show me something purportedly real happening on screen and there’s a good chance I can buy it. Even if I know it’s fake or have an assumption, at least let me take in the footage and make up my own mind. Don’t begin your film with a disclaimer that what I am about to see is real when you don’t have the guts to allow the footage to stake its own claim on the viewer's subconscious.

In Osunsanmi’s new alien abduction thriller, The Fourth Kind, we are immediately introduced to the star of the film, actress Milla Jovovich. She announces that while the footage is real she will be playing the part of Dr. Abbey Tyler in the re-enactment sequences. Considering how atrocious Jovovich’s acting has been in the past and how much the real Dr. Tyler looks like Julianne Moore, this is a major misstep of casting and calls immediate attention to itself within the first five minutes.

Dr. Tyler is a psychologist in Nome, Alaska. Currently she has been having sessions with three patients who are leading her to believe that they were all part of separate alien abductions beginning with spying a white owl staring into their rooms at night. Having her husband recently killed during an attempted abduction, she immediately finds herself intrigued by these notions.

Article Author: Cinenerd

A Utah based writer, born and raised in Salt Lake City, UT for better and worse. Cinenerd has had an obsession with film his entire life, finally able to write about them since 2009, and the only thing he loves more are his wife and their two wiener dogs (Beatrix Kiddo and Pixar Animation). …

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