Friday, May 31, 2013

The Fourth Kind Movie Review – In the End, What You Believe is Yours to Decide


Length: 98 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: November 6, 2009
Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi

Milla Jovovich ("Resident Evil") opens "The Fourth Kind," telling the audience that the film is based on true events that happened in Nome, Alaska. Jovovich plays Dr. Abigail Tyler, a woman left to raise her two children alone after someone murders her husband. Tyler tapes sessions with her patients, and she begins noticing that many of her patients tell her similar stories.

After multiple sessions, she decides to use hypnotherapy. Two of her patients tell her stories about seeing a dark and scary creature enter their homes, and one of the men kills his family after a session. As she digs a little deeper into their stories, she begins experiencing similar things at home, leading up to the disappearance of her daughter.

I cannot believe that I managed to sit through "The Fourth Kind" twice in my life because this film is painful to watch. It was one of the first faux documentary films in the sci-fi genre, but it shows that found footage themes aren't always the best idea. When I watch a movie, I want to get caught up in the story and the characters, which is hard to do with films of this type.

The best found footage films are the ones that show you characters and let you believe that these actors are the real people. With "The Fourth Kind," we see Jovovich playing Tyler, and then we see another actress playing Tyler in the supposedly real footage. It doesn't help that Jovovich introduces the film and says that she's playing the doctor. As soon as you start to believe Jovovich in the role, it shows the "true" footage and takes you right back out of the film. Luckily, I only wasted time watching the movie on Netflix and didn't waste any of my own money.

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