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metzman
Reviews
The Fourth Kind (2009)
Great film for people who like semi-real movies
"In the end, what you believe is yours to decide".
This movie's goal from the beginning is to make u believe the "actual footage" is real, and all the events really took place in Nome. And this IS part of the movie experience. Basher will say it was all a lie, it makes the movie one big joke, that your being forced to believe and will show u proof with photographs and history lessons. I say that people who really love movies shouldn't care if it's real or not BEFORE the credits roll. I say, discuss it after seeing the movie, this movie is worth a look at least! Maybe even surprise you. Just look what kind of hype and mystery "The Blair Witch Project" created. People thought it was real and that made the movie 10 times more scary.
The Fourth Kind wants you to believe too but tried a different method. The introduction speech by Milla Jovovich creates a special mental state for watching the rest of the movie and makes this experience much more immersive. Creating mystery around the making of a film ENHANCES the experience. We're suppose to watch movies to be entertained. People who go to see a movie with an "This movie can't be good" or "I've got my movie mistakes notebook ready to go" attitude will ruin it for themselves.
This movie is meant to be watched open minded, knowing as little about the movie as possible and by people who like to be scared. And if u are touched on a fear level by movies like Paranormal Activity, The Blair Witch Project and so on and liked it, you will love The Fourth Kind. The actors portraying the involved people of Nome give good performances. Realistic serious acting that you'd normally see in a thriller/drama movie, which works great when you want to captivate an audience if your subject is "alien abductions" and "True events" mixed.
Every scene with "actual footage/recording" is edge on your seat stuff. Some might want to rewind some of it thinking "what was that!?" or leave u disturbed/lightly shocked. It's the kind of experience that gave me chills and left some of the images and sound burned in my mind when I went to sleep. I remember people talking about the chest bursting scene in "Alien" in '79 and that they we're just too shocked and surprised to look away or react and just gasped saying "Holy Sh*t". Although not as "gory" like that scene in Alien, The Fourth Kind really struck a similar note with me at some points.
The Fourth Kind to me personally is a greatly crafted Sci-Fi thriller with a touch of "Real" that met or even exceeded my expectations. But It won't be the same experience for everyone, it couldn't be, we're all unique and all have different expectations. It is great entertainment for those who like Blair-Activity-ish movies. Not for people who only look for faults and cold hard facts.
MDK (1997)
"Prepare for a underrated experience"
MDK is a title that never got a clear definition. Mostly translated as "Murder Death Kill" among fans the game had much more under the hood than mindless killing as this title would suggest. In combination with a tag-line on the back of the CD case: "On a good day, 2.5 billion people will die" u would guess this was a "carmageddon" type game where killing 2.5 billion was your main objective instead of realizing it was your mission to prevent that. What people should have done, is analyze the screenshots on the back and grab onto the main tag-line:"Prepare for a Religious Experience".
This game was one of the first to require a Pentium processor to run the (for it's time) advanced graphics. And it showed off. But not only was the game a technical leap in those days, the developers at Shiny knew that technology is just a tool, and that u sometimes need to use the tech to create a new experience instead of bringing out a playable tech-demo. Therefor MDK became a cult-classic game, full of crazy, dark but imaginative art-designs, surprisingly funny and epic gameplay moments. Every level (minecrawler) has a different style of environment, structure and color scheme, and music so stylish and variable, I had to buy the soundtrack, great work from Tommy Tallarico and his team.
And yes, the frase "Murder Death kill" is somewhat appropriate since there is a lot of shooting and explosions, but it never takes itself serious, not in weapons, situations, enemy behavior or scenery and that's where the game shines. Below are some examples, could be seen as spoilers.
***Spoilers***
Aliens mocking you (mooning, waving and dancing) behind glass, thinking that they're safe while you shoot a well placed mortar in a vent shaft leading to their feet, making them...less happy. Or going up a platform where your suddenly surround by a happy landscape with blue skies, bushes and the sounds of birdwhistles, only to discover it's a wooden movie-stage like set the aliens set up to confuse you. The infamous room where the texture paint-job wasn't finished yet, and many more of these little moments. Then there's snowboard-chases with bond-style music, cows on water and references to movies/other Shiny games (like Earth Worm Jim)
***End Spoilers***
The game still finds my PC disc drive once in a while, a Direct 3D patch kan be downloaded for smoothers graphics, but the game still runs great, even in Windows XP, which is a treat, since a lot of PC classics just won't run on Windows XP anymore and need emulators and such.
I myself liked MDK 1 better than MDK 2 because of the darker design and more grown-up feel. It's a cross between a Tim Burton and Micheal Bay. Not to long ago there was the announcement that Interplay is picking up old franchises again, they showed a picture with a collage of characters that will return, and Kurt Hectic was one of them... MDK 3..? We can only hope.