The Fourth Kind

Movie Information

The Story: An utterly bogus "fact-based" tale of alien abduction. The Lowdown: Dishonest, tedious and lacking in the way of thrills, this is one of the key films to miss this year.
Score:

Genre: Spurious "Fact-Based" Sci-Fi
Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Will Patton, Elias Koteas, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Corey Johnson
Rated: PG-13

The first line in The Fourth Kind has Milla Jovovich calling herself an “actress,” so we know right away the film is lying. OK, calling herself an actress may not quite be lying, but it’s certainly either hyperbole or wishful thinking—something Ms. Jovovich proceeds to prove for the next 96 minutes in her portrayal of Dr. Abigail Tyler, an Alaskan psychologist. The story claims that Tyler, along with a number of her patients, has been playing guinea pig to a bunch of space aliens who appear to them in the guise of white owls—one of which has seemingly stabbed (or perhaps pecked) Tyler’s husband to death.

Director/writer Olatunde Osunsanmi’s premise is that his film is a blend of archival footage involving the “real” Abigail Tyler and her patients, interviews with Tyler (conducted by the director himself) and Hollywoodified dramatic recreations of the events depicted. To this end, the players have on-screen titles identifying them as actors and their “real-life” counterparts—save for Tyler—have on-screen names with “(alias)” after them. Personally, I think the actors would have been better advised to adopt aliases themselves—and heavy character makeup. A good alibi for their whereabouts while this thing was being made wouldn’t have hurt either.

Part of the problem with all this is that there is no evidence that Tyler exists. There is no record of such a person being licensed as a psychologist (or anything else) in the state of Alaska. In short, Mr. Osunsanmi is peddling a load of clams—made of whole cloth and utterly bogus “archival footage.” I wouldn’t mind this so much except for the fact that this means I’ll spend years listening to Art Bell fans claim that this nonsense “really happened.” What I do mind is that his clams smell like oysters harvested in a month that hasn’t an “r” in it—and left in the sun for rather a long time. Even had the story been true, this would still be dull, witlessly hysterical rubbish—occasionally enlivened by unintentional mirth.

The story line is foolish beyond words. The death of her husband has left dear Abby shell-shocked and her daughter (Mia McKenna-Bruce) psychosomatically (I guess) blind. Rather than teach the kid to play pinball, Tyler focuses her energies on continuing her practice, which seems to consist entirely of patients with some kind of connected insomnia that involves a white owl staring at them through the window. It occurs to no one to invest in curtains or blinds—nor that the owl might just be advertising cigars. The “inspiration” here is that if you throw a close-up of a white owl out of focus and squint your eyes just so, it bears some resemblance to the popular notion of a gray alien. Then again, we never actually see one of these aliens because they like to bitch-up video signals so that they look like bad UHF reception, so who knows? Maybe they look like guys in owl suits.

There’s a lot of senseless palaver about ancient Sumerians and hieroglyphics that supposedly look like astronauts and rockets (actually the rockets look like squids or personal vibrators), and none of this addresses the central question of why the aliens are doing any of this. Seriously, if this has been going on for thousands of years, can they possibly expect to learn anything new by playing proctologist on sleeping specimens at this late date? Perhaps they merely have a twisted sense of humor.

Osunsanmi attempts to dress all this up with more split-screen work in this one film than is in the collected works of Brian De Palma. The idea is to show the “real” footage side-by-side with its recreated brethren, but the results are merely annoying—only serving to illustrate that Jovovich bears not the least resemblance to the woman she’s supposedly portraying. I think my partner-in-reviewing Justin Souther said it best when he remarked, “This makes me wish I were watching Signs.” That’s cold, yes, but remarkably to the point. Rated PG-13 for violent/disturbing images, some terror, thematic elements and brief sexuality.

SHARE
About Ken Hanke
Head film critic for Mountain Xpress from December 2000 until his death in June 2016. Author of books "Ken Russell's Films," "Charlie Chan at the Movies," "A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series," "Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker."

Before you comment

The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.

12 thoughts on “The Fourth Kind

  1. Ken Hanke

    Ha! I’m using that line.

    Have at it, but I fear it’s only good for rare instances.

  2. Ken Hanke

    I guess we are even. I was dragged to this one.

    At least I got paid to do sit through it.

  3. Ken Hanke

    Unlike Tango & cash or Home alone!

    You sound suspiciously like the person responsible for me seeing those…

  4. Nihilist

    Your first sentence of your review tells me you dont listen properly. She said she was an actress representing the actual woman which in this case was “renamed” “Dr. Abigail Tyler”. That does not say that the movie is fake RIGHT AWAY. Please think before you post something like a review commenting on a movie

  5. lasagna

    I believe that the user Nihilist was a bit confused…or maybe I was I don´t know, I think that what the reviewer wanted to say when he stated

    “The first line in The Fourth Kind has Milla Jovovich calling herself an “actress,” so we know right away the film is lying.”

    is that he´s questioning the quality of Milla as an actress, I mean her performance.

    Am I right?

  6. Ken Hanke

    Am I right?

    Yes, of course, you are. It’s pretty obvious if you pay attention to what you’re reading. There’s no indication in the sentence of anything about her character’s name.

  7. Todd

    Once again I found myself drawn to comments on the internet message boards on “The Fourth Kind” with users lamenting being lied to, stating that the producers make the claim that it is a true story or really happened and that Milla Jovovich did an interview on the “web” making the same claims. I should just let it go, but the closest I’ve come to such a claim is the statement that the original footage along side the reenactment is achival. Aren’t people just being suckered into interpreting archival as actual? Along with the director’s interviews taking place at a fictional Chapman College (not to be confused with Chapman University), the filmmakers crafted a realistic story. The hype is part of the entertainment value. Sumerian hieroglyphics might look like personal vibrators to some people, but to others, they look like rocket ships. I guess it’s your frame of reference while watching the movie.

  8. pp312

    Gee, and I thought I was the only one who thought
    Milla Jovovich couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. Her idea of “acting” appears to be to whisper and look aside as if she were guilty of something. As for the movie, pretty woeful, but then I dislike Jovovich so much it would’ve been a total washout anyway.

    Oh, and as for that “actual” footage, why do film makers give the game away by using zoom and multiple angles? Real footage does not employ zoom (at least not “artful” zoom) and multiple angles, especially side views. They just can’t help themselves.

Leave a Reply to Ken Hanke ×

To leave a reply you may Login with your Mountain Xpress account, connect socially or enter your name and e-mail. Your e-mail address will not be published. All fields are required.