If there was ever an award for a film being pointless, terribly acted, poorly pieced together and a complete waste of time and money, The Fourth Kind would win it, hands down.
When a film is “based on true events” you know it’s going to be a fun watch. Where does truth end and artistic license begin? is it just one 5 minute section of truth (did anyone see “The Strangers”?), or is it just the name of the main character?!
The title comes from the four different kinds of “alien interaction”, the fourth kind being abduction.
Opening with a speech from Milla Jovovich, attempting to be ominous, about how you should believe what you want from the film, it sets a precedent for how the rest of the film pans out.
The main character, Dr. Abigail Tyler [acted by Jovovich], is a psychiatrist that works in the small Alaskan town of Nome, using hypnosis to help patients relive old forgotten memories.
Most, if not all, of her patients talk of the same symptoms – the presence of a white owl watching them through the window, causing them to wake in the night. A large number of disappearances within Nome cause Dr. Tyler to believe there to be more to this than just a freak owl invasion and people leaving town, possibly alien abductions.
She begins to film sessions with her patients in which her hypnosis techniques show violent and vocal responses from her fear filled patients speaking in tongues, strengthening her beliefs that these people have been abducted and brought back.
As her research continues further, she herself begins to see the mysterious white owl and believes she is a new target of the alien abductors. Her daughter is the next to disappear, with the cliched “white beam of light” coming down to take her away, it couldn’t get much more cheesy without a circular UFO floating above the house with little grey men inside.
The film concludes with another speech from Jovovich as well as the director of the film, saying very similar things to the opening speech, that you should take from the film what you can, yadda yadda yadda.
Throughout the film the viewer is treated to a poorly cut blend of real interview footage and the same footage acted by the cast. If I wanted to watch a documentary of original footage I’d have done just that. This editing is distracting at best, and gets thoroughly boring after the first few instances. There is no need for it at all.
It’s “based on real life events”, WE GET IT!!
The plot is very lacking, not straying any further than re-enacting original footage and piecing together the interview responses given, as new scenes.
I’d avoid this film if you haven’t already had the misfortune of seeing it.
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Since writing this review I have learned that none of the story is based on true events. The entire plot is fictional and as such this just removes all credit the film once had. If you have the option of making a plot from nothing, having complete freedom, and you come up with a film like this you don’t deserve to make films.