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The Fourth Kind
Milla Jovovich stars as Dr. Abigail Tyler in "The Fourth Kind."Courtesy/MovieWeb
By KIM BROWN World Scene Writer
Published: 11/7/2009 2:22 AM
Last Modified: 11/8/2009 3:55 AM
Rather than dazzling us with shocks and thrills, "The Fourth Kind" wants you to believe.
The movie's marketing campaign is surely trying to cash in on the buckets of money recently made by "Paranormal Activity," which took a cue from "The Blair Witch Project" back in 1999.
While I realize that a good scare is all in good fun, I believe that "The Fourth Kind" is about as real as the boogie man. Without all of its manipulated hocus-pocus, there's not much substance to this mediocre alien abduction story.
Milla Jovovich addresses the audience directly at the start. "I am the actress Milla Jovovich," she states, and warns us that "some of what you see will be disturbing."
And to a small degree, the movie's writer/director Olatunde Osunsanmi succeeds in suspending disbelief — but not for long.
Jovovich plays psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler, but Osunsanmi also shows the "real" Abigail in side-by-side frames.
Then, Osunsanmi appears as himself conducting an interview with the "real" Abigail, and goes back and forth between alleged archived footage created by the doctor and his filmed scenes.
Abigail's patients are experiencing a strange — and I'll admit it — creepy phenomena in Nome, Alaska. At least three or four of them describe being watched through their bedroom windows by white owls and experiencing other strange events that they can't quite remember.
But Abigail has demons of her own — she can't get over the recent death of
her husband, which she claims was a murder. So she undergoes hypnotism and tries to see the face of the killer, who stabs her husband in their own bed at night.
Meanwhile, she suspects that these strange occurrences, including her own, are all connected. When one particularly distraught patient turns to violence, Abigail is automatically suspected by the town's sheriff, played by Will Patton, because she has been hypnotizing the patients and getting explosive reactions.
Then, she discovers a freaky recording she has no memory of making. All she hears is screaming and a strange voice in a foreign tongue.
Well, by this time the audience is stupid not to believe her. Aliens of some sort are obviously playing scary games with the good citizens of Nome — the definition of the movie's title means alien abduction, we're told by the "real" Abigail.
But amid all of this, I was distracted and trying to place where I had seen the "real" Abigail before. She's not credited, of course, but I swear she's a character actress and I've seen her on film before. And this actress does a good job conveying her fear — she's actually better than Jovovich, who seems too even throughout, despite some good screaming here and there.
The danger in playing with your audience is that they could walk out feeling manipulated. And, even though I have since learned there have been real unexplained disappearances in Nome, I still don't believe in "The Fourth Kind."
Neither do officials. Nome's Mayor tells CNN.com that the horror flick is "science fiction," and it is "supposed to be for our entertainment."
And Osunsanmi won't comment about it, naturally.
He's probably off twirling his proverbial mustache somewhere in the dark, thinking he pulled one over on us. But despite his best efforts, toying with the audience just doesn't fly with "The Fourth Kind."
The Fourth Kind
Stars: Milla Jovovich, Will Patton
Theaters: AMC Southroads
20, Cinemark Tulsa, Starworld
20, RiverWalk, Owasso, Sand
Springs
Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Rated: PG-13
Quality:  (on a scale of zero
to four stars)
Kim Brown 581-8474
kim.brown@tulsaworld.com
By KIM BROWN World Scene Writer
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