The Fourth Kind - movie review

My roommate and I recently rented "The Fourth Kind", being drawn in by the interesting-sounding trailer. We're both suckers for movies based on real events of alien abductions, so we figured this would be a movie we'd both enjoy.

Sadly, the most enjoyment I got out of this movie was nitpicking the fact that there are so many ways to tell that this movie is based on somebody's very active imagination.

I'm not referring to the fact that's it's a supposedly true story about alien abductions. I'm talking about things they show in the movie that go counter to what they're trying to establish, obvious inaccuracies in the so-called "real footage."

I warn you now, this review will contain spoilers. If you haven't seen this movie and don't want to know details about some scenes, then hit the Back button now and we'll never speak of it again. Otherwise, read on.

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Still here? Great! Let's review.

The movie follows the story of Dr. Abbey Tyler, a psychologist in Nome, Alaska, who's treating people who suffer from sleep disorders. They report seeing an owl at night, always watching them, and Dr. Tyler starts regression hypnosis on one of her patients in order to uncover the truth.

This movie claims to be a reenactment of events that were recorded in 2000, and so some scenes are shot side-by-side with what they claim is acual footage taken at the time.

The first patient's regression goes badly, and he freaks out while reliving the events that keep him awake at night. Dr. Tyler, like any good psychologist, lets her patient leave the office while still obviously unnerved, and makes no attempt to properly calm him down. Later on, the man shoots his family, saying that it's the only way they'll no longer have to suffer the horrors at night.

Here's the first big moment that the movie's "based on real events" breaks down. The "actual footage" is shown... of a guy shooting his wife, his two children, and then himself. The sheer amount of red tape and hoops that the movie producers would have to jump through to show this footage in a movie is insane, not to mention in seriously poor taste. The sheer unlikeliness of this scene, one they claimed was real footage of the event, actually been shown was so slim that it wasn't even really worth considering.

Another gaffe? The "real" Dr. Tyler uses her patient's name, Tommy, in the recording. But every other use of a name is blanked out on the audio of the "actual footage", and it was stated earlier that all the names used in the movie (barring the name of the director and writer of the screeplay) are aliases. So... they blank out all names but that one, and just dub it over instead? We're actually expected to believe that?

The movie progresses, and things get creepier. Regressing other patients makes them speak in a language that is later identified as Sumerian, while they roar and contort in a way that apparently breaks the spine of whoever's going through it at the time. This would be interesting if it wasn't so over-the-top. The camera goes fuzzy and blurry, very distorted, and we can only see vague glimpses of the person experiencing the hypnosis, as they contort and scream and apparently float a few inches off whatever surface they were sitting on.

Later, after Dr. Tyler's daughter disappeared (another blurry image of a large dark shape over the house), the good doctor herself undergoes regression and speaks in the same crazy loud Sumerian voice, which claims that the daughter will not be returned, and that it is God. Hefty claim. Dr. Tyler's own spine is broken in the process.

The final kicker in this movie is the behaviour of the law enforcement officer, August. If this guy's behaviour was accurate, he should have been fired and sued about fifty times over. Arrests with no good cause, not questioning witnesses and instead jumping to illogical conclusions, destruction of private property because he lost his temper during an investigation, poor conduct all around. Yes, there are bad cops around, but I'm sorry, I'm not about to accept that this guy's behaviour was accurately portrayed, as the movie would have me believe. Not without legal retaliation.

This movie would have been much better if it had been presented in a different way. Instead of doing a "based on real events" semi-documentary style flick, just a straight-up sci-fi movie about alien abduction, presented as fiction, would have been much more compelling and much more enjoyable to sit through. As it was, I'm not surprised that this movie was poorly received by critics.

The viral marketing done for this movie was badly done too, right down to planting false obituaries and news articles online. The movie studio ended up having to pay a goodly sum as a settlement for misrepresentation, for one thing. For another... Do they really think that planting false obituaries and news articles is going to make any sense when a personwatches the movie and sees that all the names used are aliases? That just guarantees that the "news" they released is false, and why would somebody take the movie's premise seriously after that?

Sad to say, this is another movie I don't recomment that people buy. Unless you're a hard-core sci-fi buff, or have to own every new movie, I'd recommend renting this if you're feeling generous and just skipping it otherwise. Much like Paranormal Activity, the hype was more entertaining than the movie itself, and that doesn't really say much.