Review: The Fourth Kind
After the phenomenal success of Paranormal Activity, audiences are hungering for the next sensational film experience, and by the trailers, The Fourth Kind wants to be it. Unfortunately, it's an incoherent mess that overreaches its potential.
The pretense is that a newly widowed psychologist, Abbey Tyler, is continuing with her husband's work and notices eerie similarities among some patients, resulting in horrifying discoveries that suggest alien abductions. It's hard to avoid that conclusion early, because the all the trailers and marketing material emphasizes that.
With the exception of Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element) as Tyler, the rest of the cast appears uncomfortable with the melodramatic scenes. Will Patton, who usually elicits shivers, seems to have channeled every B-movie bad cop. Elias Koteas, who had a similar role in The Haunting in Connecticut, seems resigned. Even Corey Johnson (Hellboy, The Bourne Ultimatum) and Enzo Cilenti (In the Loop, Millions), as two of the abductees, look exhausted with trying to make it believable.
Writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi's The Fourth Kind relies on too many gimmicks, from an introduction by Jovovich as herself emphasizing that actors are portaying real people, to simultaneously playing "actual audio" and/or video with actors simultaneously re-enacting the same. Instead of making it seem real, Osunanmi seems incapable of deciding just what kind of film he really wants to make. The cumulative effect is distracting at best, but more than not, laughable, right down the heartlight stuffed toy.
If the marketing strategy of "tell your story" seems familiar, it should, for good reason. Comparing the credits of The Fourth Kind with White Noise and The Haunting in Connecticut reveal quite a few of the same names, especially at the producer level. The same "this is real" gimmick is used for The Fourth Kind, but much less effectively. The attempts to blur the lines between reality and fiction even include Chapman University, with their logo being used during an "interview" between the "real" Abbey Tyler and director Osunsanmi.
The heavy-handedness makes it impossible to take any of The Fourth Kind as a "real" story, even with the attempts at reveals. The extensive text at the beginning and the end, and the constant reminder that it's real, make it nearly impossible to get caught up in the story.