I didn't believe for a moment that the "actual footage" in The Fourth Kind was actually actual footage. Surely one would have heard of stories of a relatively unknown filmmaker Olatunde Osunsanmi crafting a docu-drama out of footage from actual alien abductee interviews from some years ago. It should be no surprise that it is just a gimmick to make the story of UFO abduction more credible, which is all well and good. Indeed this wasn't even really the problem in and of itself I had with the movie. It was just that, well, it wasn't a good movie. This may sound like one of the weakest ways to complain about something like a film that took a lot of preparation and acting heft (or not or too much as case turns out), but it is the case here. It's a premise and technique that starts promising, and then without knowing exactly when it just crumbles in self-importance.
It's from the start given the weight of "THIS IS FACT! sort of" as Milla Jovovich comes to tell the audience that she will be playing the part of Dr. Abigail Tyler, and that footage will be shown in the film that is from real-life footage of the real Dr. Tyler from videotaped interviews she had with abducted under hypnosis, and herself interviewed by the director of the film. This is an awful lot of information to give at the front, and it's a sign of things to come: a film that decides it take its subject matter SERIOUSLY as factual, albeit with dramatization, so much so that we see this 'real' actress telling us this.
It's about Tyler, who one night found her husband murdered in her bedroom with a knife through his chest. How did this happen? Did she see or 'feel' someone else in the room? Hypnosis shows this as a vague, terrifying possibility, and she follows up on cases in the small Alaskan town of Nome to interview others who have had nearly identical experiences. Every night a snow owl is outside the window, and somehow 'comes in' to the bedroom, and then... well, no one can seem to remember, or really that there is nothing to remember due to their intended to be forgetful from the "fourth kind" experience. Dr. Tyler can't come to any other conclusion than it, despite protest from her fellow psychologist (Koetas), and soon digs up some research on Sumerian language and that the horrific dialog heard on an audio tape recording shows dialog from Sumeria. Freaky.
The approach, at first, seems that it is original and with some daring. The idea is to combine scenes ala Woodstock- split-screens as a scene is happening simultaneously- and create a perspective of reality filtering into the fictional representation. It's interesting, for the first twenty minutes. But unfortunately this method doesn't hold up. The director means for the audience to take alien abduction seriously, and it's not something he really needs to go to too far lengths to do, though he clutters his serious approach with self-seriousness and a hyper-style that calls attention to itself in some practically laughable ways (at least that was the reaction of the audience I was with, I was more dumbfounded and shell-shocked after a while).
There are examples littered throughout the film. One is the approach to the owls. Why do owls appear? What's the connection? This ambiguity isn't so bad, but the way Osunsanmi approaches it with his camera is precious, with lighting that is of that blue-crap tint and with some spliced-in footage of owls every so often just to give an unnecessary jolt. One other is a small scene where we're shown some artifacts from Sumerian culture. At first this just looks like one of those scenes from a hacky science-fiction TV show on alien abduction or something, and then Osunsanmi just goes all nutty with how he shoots it, with strobe lights going all over the place and creating a whiplash feel that is just wrong for this portion of the film.
And lastly it's the whole approach to Dr. Tyler as a character that bothers one. Jovovich does what she can as an actress, and to her credit she has some affecting scenes here as a mother of two who is trying to hold on to her principles as a doctor, hard evidence but lacking in just the kind of case that needs it to dissuade a dissatisfied sheriff (Will Patton), and ultimately her character becomes one note: INTENSE FEAR! She fares better than the 'other' woman who if you believe the story and the footage (aka hoax) is really Dr. Tyler, interviewed by the director on her experience, who is slabbed with bad make-up and mugs her way through an at-best hysterical turn. Towards the end, just as it's supposed to be most stirring, it gets cringe-worthy, especially as the filmmaker/Jovovich tells us (not asks us) outright: decide for yourself based on this. Yeah, it's just a movie, thanks, no matter what we really think of aliens.
This split in the two/one character(s), of a dramatic and harrowing dramatization of a story, and of interviews with this woman and her as-happened clips with distorted video and audio punctuating the abduction bits, don't mesh together well enough to justify the movie on the whole. It might have made a fascinating short film, but even at 93 minutes it over-stays its welcome and doesn't blow one away with surprises (indeed a scene late in the film showing a 'recreation' of a drill-probe had me and a friend chuckling at exactly the wrong moment). The director could have decided, either to make a solid *drama* that might appear to be based on a real case (i.e. Fargo) but isn't, or make a documentary ala the recent Paranormal Activity or to an extent District 9. As it stands, if you saw the (somewhat misleading) trailer, you saw it all.
It's from the start given the weight of "THIS IS FACT! sort of" as Milla Jovovich comes to tell the audience that she will be playing the part of Dr. Abigail Tyler, and that footage will be shown in the film that is from real-life footage of the real Dr. Tyler from videotaped interviews she had with abducted under hypnosis, and herself interviewed by the director of the film. This is an awful lot of information to give at the front, and it's a sign of things to come: a film that decides it take its subject matter SERIOUSLY as factual, albeit with dramatization, so much so that we see this 'real' actress telling us this.
It's about Tyler, who one night found her husband murdered in her bedroom with a knife through his chest. How did this happen? Did she see or 'feel' someone else in the room? Hypnosis shows this as a vague, terrifying possibility, and she follows up on cases in the small Alaskan town of Nome to interview others who have had nearly identical experiences. Every night a snow owl is outside the window, and somehow 'comes in' to the bedroom, and then... well, no one can seem to remember, or really that there is nothing to remember due to their intended to be forgetful from the "fourth kind" experience. Dr. Tyler can't come to any other conclusion than it, despite protest from her fellow psychologist (Koetas), and soon digs up some research on Sumerian language and that the horrific dialog heard on an audio tape recording shows dialog from Sumeria. Freaky.
The approach, at first, seems that it is original and with some daring. The idea is to combine scenes ala Woodstock- split-screens as a scene is happening simultaneously- and create a perspective of reality filtering into the fictional representation. It's interesting, for the first twenty minutes. But unfortunately this method doesn't hold up. The director means for the audience to take alien abduction seriously, and it's not something he really needs to go to too far lengths to do, though he clutters his serious approach with self-seriousness and a hyper-style that calls attention to itself in some practically laughable ways (at least that was the reaction of the audience I was with, I was more dumbfounded and shell-shocked after a while).
There are examples littered throughout the film. One is the approach to the owls. Why do owls appear? What's the connection? This ambiguity isn't so bad, but the way Osunsanmi approaches it with his camera is precious, with lighting that is of that blue-crap tint and with some spliced-in footage of owls every so often just to give an unnecessary jolt. One other is a small scene where we're shown some artifacts from Sumerian culture. At first this just looks like one of those scenes from a hacky science-fiction TV show on alien abduction or something, and then Osunsanmi just goes all nutty with how he shoots it, with strobe lights going all over the place and creating a whiplash feel that is just wrong for this portion of the film.
And lastly it's the whole approach to Dr. Tyler as a character that bothers one. Jovovich does what she can as an actress, and to her credit she has some affecting scenes here as a mother of two who is trying to hold on to her principles as a doctor, hard evidence but lacking in just the kind of case that needs it to dissuade a dissatisfied sheriff (Will Patton), and ultimately her character becomes one note: INTENSE FEAR! She fares better than the 'other' woman who if you believe the story and the footage (aka hoax) is really Dr. Tyler, interviewed by the director on her experience, who is slabbed with bad make-up and mugs her way through an at-best hysterical turn. Towards the end, just as it's supposed to be most stirring, it gets cringe-worthy, especially as the filmmaker/Jovovich tells us (not asks us) outright: decide for yourself based on this. Yeah, it's just a movie, thanks, no matter what we really think of aliens.
This split in the two/one character(s), of a dramatic and harrowing dramatization of a story, and of interviews with this woman and her as-happened clips with distorted video and audio punctuating the abduction bits, don't mesh together well enough to justify the movie on the whole. It might have made a fascinating short film, but even at 93 minutes it over-stays its welcome and doesn't blow one away with surprises (indeed a scene late in the film showing a 'recreation' of a drill-probe had me and a friend chuckling at exactly the wrong moment). The director could have decided, either to make a solid *drama* that might appear to be based on a real case (i.e. Fargo) but isn't, or make a documentary ala the recent Paranormal Activity or to an extent District 9. As it stands, if you saw the (somewhat misleading) trailer, you saw it all.