"Alien encounters are of four kinds. First kind is Sighting. Second kind is Evidence. Third kind is Contact. Fourth kind is Abduction."
When the film opened to Milla Jovovich introducing herself and telling us that this is a true story and she is playing a character Abbey Tyler, I thought, oh great! another dumb movie, but I was so wrong. She says 'this is based on real events and documentary footage', but since I already knew it was completely false, my review isn't based on whether it was true or not. This was made as a movie and it should be viewed as such and you should not dwell too much thinking that the filmmakers cheated you by saying it was true. It is entertainment you are looking for in a movie, not a life-changing experience.
The film opens by Olatunde Osunsanmi interviewing the 'real' Dr. Abbey Tyler. She is a ghost of a woman with a look that says she hasn't got anything to live for and is struggling to barely get by day to day activities. So, we know where the film is moving towards, now the question is whether the director takes us there catching our attention. While Milla Jovovich is very beautiful, the 'real' version Abbey is not so good-looking, the Hollywood factor is in play here. The story is set in Nome, Alaska, where there are plenty of disappearances and missing people are on the rise since the 1960's or something. FBI has apparently visited this remote town more times than any other city or town.
Coming to the story, Abbey Tyler's husband is killed in front of her by someone, when they are sleeping, but she can't remember the face of the killer and the police insist that he committed suicide and she must have been hallucinating to block the painful memories. She is a psychologist, so she tries to bring some normalcy to her life by continuing on after her husband dies. Her daughter Ashley has lost her sight since the day of the death and nobody knows why she can't see. Also, her son Ronnie is not such a mama's boy and I thought he was kind of a jerk (even though young) in the final act when the police take him away from her. She sees a lot of patients who wake up in the middle of the night without any apparent reason and remember an owl looking at them. She deduces that there may be some higher powers at work here and so induces one of them into a deep sleep where she hypnotizes a patient. He doesn't remember an owl, but he sees something that is not a human and freaks out. He goes home and kills his family. The Sheriff isn't too happy about her experimentation with the patients and warns her to stay put. But, she has to know the truth. She becomes acquainted with Awolowa Odusami, a scholar who has studied the Sumarian language (which no one has spoken in over 4000 years) his whole life. He is confused when he hears the Sumerian language spoken in perfect sentences in one of Abbey's videos and they think they may be aliens. Abbey's father is staying with her to support her in these difficult times. Her daughter is also abducted by the aliens. Will she get her child back, who is her husband's killer and was she too abducted by them?
The performances by the actors are very good, the documentary actors are also excellent. The 'real' Abbey Tyler doesn't overplay or underplay her character and I was very much moved by her character. Some tears escaped my eyes during the final scenes when she remembers her daughter. The addition of documentary footage to the real movie was awesome, I absolutely loved it. Lots of IMDb users are complaining that the aliens are never shown and they lost interest. For me, that was the best part, just showing that static video made the whole experience so much more thrilling. It was like watching a Hitchcock movie (though far lesser in effect, it was good). In a video, the alien says ' I am ..... GOD'. Frankly, that was disturbing as it could very well be the creatures that we pray as God. The rockets and spacesuits do exist in the old carvings. If you don't believe in aliens, then think about the pyramids which were built thousands of years ago with absolute precision in a time when there were no modern tools and theorems to help them out. I think the aliens helped us build the pyramids for their own reasons in a precise geographical manner so that it was kind of a map to get to their own planet if they were ever lost (I'm a huge believer of supernatural stuff since I was a kid).
But I digress. Moving on, this is a very scary movie if you go into it with an open mind, believing everything they say and do on screen is real. I have seen Paranormal Activity and I wasn't as scared as I expected, but this is a thousand times better than that movie. I actually was scared as the premise is very believable and I have always believed that aliens and ghosts do exist. But this was way better than PA. This will leave you wondering if the things you did last night were real or was it all an illusion? "In the end, what you believe is yours to decide."
8/10 - Girish, 20
When the film opened to Milla Jovovich introducing herself and telling us that this is a true story and she is playing a character Abbey Tyler, I thought, oh great! another dumb movie, but I was so wrong. She says 'this is based on real events and documentary footage', but since I already knew it was completely false, my review isn't based on whether it was true or not. This was made as a movie and it should be viewed as such and you should not dwell too much thinking that the filmmakers cheated you by saying it was true. It is entertainment you are looking for in a movie, not a life-changing experience.
The film opens by Olatunde Osunsanmi interviewing the 'real' Dr. Abbey Tyler. She is a ghost of a woman with a look that says she hasn't got anything to live for and is struggling to barely get by day to day activities. So, we know where the film is moving towards, now the question is whether the director takes us there catching our attention. While Milla Jovovich is very beautiful, the 'real' version Abbey is not so good-looking, the Hollywood factor is in play here. The story is set in Nome, Alaska, where there are plenty of disappearances and missing people are on the rise since the 1960's or something. FBI has apparently visited this remote town more times than any other city or town.
Coming to the story, Abbey Tyler's husband is killed in front of her by someone, when they are sleeping, but she can't remember the face of the killer and the police insist that he committed suicide and she must have been hallucinating to block the painful memories. She is a psychologist, so she tries to bring some normalcy to her life by continuing on after her husband dies. Her daughter Ashley has lost her sight since the day of the death and nobody knows why she can't see. Also, her son Ronnie is not such a mama's boy and I thought he was kind of a jerk (even though young) in the final act when the police take him away from her. She sees a lot of patients who wake up in the middle of the night without any apparent reason and remember an owl looking at them. She deduces that there may be some higher powers at work here and so induces one of them into a deep sleep where she hypnotizes a patient. He doesn't remember an owl, but he sees something that is not a human and freaks out. He goes home and kills his family. The Sheriff isn't too happy about her experimentation with the patients and warns her to stay put. But, she has to know the truth. She becomes acquainted with Awolowa Odusami, a scholar who has studied the Sumarian language (which no one has spoken in over 4000 years) his whole life. He is confused when he hears the Sumerian language spoken in perfect sentences in one of Abbey's videos and they think they may be aliens. Abbey's father is staying with her to support her in these difficult times. Her daughter is also abducted by the aliens. Will she get her child back, who is her husband's killer and was she too abducted by them?
The performances by the actors are very good, the documentary actors are also excellent. The 'real' Abbey Tyler doesn't overplay or underplay her character and I was very much moved by her character. Some tears escaped my eyes during the final scenes when she remembers her daughter. The addition of documentary footage to the real movie was awesome, I absolutely loved it. Lots of IMDb users are complaining that the aliens are never shown and they lost interest. For me, that was the best part, just showing that static video made the whole experience so much more thrilling. It was like watching a Hitchcock movie (though far lesser in effect, it was good). In a video, the alien says ' I am ..... GOD'. Frankly, that was disturbing as it could very well be the creatures that we pray as God. The rockets and spacesuits do exist in the old carvings. If you don't believe in aliens, then think about the pyramids which were built thousands of years ago with absolute precision in a time when there were no modern tools and theorems to help them out. I think the aliens helped us build the pyramids for their own reasons in a precise geographical manner so that it was kind of a map to get to their own planet if they were ever lost (I'm a huge believer of supernatural stuff since I was a kid).
But I digress. Moving on, this is a very scary movie if you go into it with an open mind, believing everything they say and do on screen is real. I have seen Paranormal Activity and I wasn't as scared as I expected, but this is a thousand times better than that movie. I actually was scared as the premise is very believable and I have always believed that aliens and ghosts do exist. But this was way better than PA. This will leave you wondering if the things you did last night were real or was it all an illusion? "In the end, what you believe is yours to decide."
8/10 - Girish, 20