Milla Jovovich finally talks to me … me! in the new thriller “The Fourth Kind.”
The lovely actress speaks to everyone in the audience when the movie opens, letting us know parts of what we’re about to see are absolutely true.
Our relationship is so new, so vulnerable, and she’s lying already.
“The Fourth Kind” tries a Frankenstein mashup of found footage cinema and standard horror movie shocks. As novelties go, it’s hardly the worst we’ve seen in recent memory.
The “Psycho” shot-by-shot remake captures that honor.
But a gimmick only works to separate a movie from its peers. The film ultimately must deliver, and that’s where “The Fourth Kind” fails.
Jovovich plays Dr. Abigail Tyler, a Nome, Alaska-based psychologist dealing with several patients with frighteningly similar stories to share.
Each tells her,often under hypnosis, that they are being haunted by owls lurking near their bedroom windows, but that’s only the start of their horror stories.
Tyler soon starts experiencing her own visions, coming on the heels of the sudden death of her husband, Will. Is his death connected to these strange events? And what exactly killed a young, healthy man like Will?
“The Fourth Kind” unfolds in dual fashion. Jovovich and crew, including a Hormel hammy Will Patton, re-enact what we’re told really happened in this Alaskan town. We also see “real” footage of interviews taken with the actual Tyler and some of her patients.
The archive interviews aren’t very convincing, and all you’ll need is a quick google search to see the film’s truth factor doesn’t hold up.
“The Blair Witch Project” also projected a veneer of realism, but wisely backed up it up with old-fashioned chills. The recent “Paranormal Activity” doubled down on the scares with his faux reality videos.
“The Fourth Kind” does manage a few unnerving moments, but they’re buttressed by wan dialogue and increasingly absurd characters.
The concept behind “The Fourth Kind” is novel enough to gin up our interest, but ultimately a gimmick must give way to rock-solid storytelling – something Jovovich and co. neglect to deliver.
(Photo: Milla Jovovich stars as Dr. Abigail Tyler, a psychologist who may be getting visited by aliens in “The Fourth Kind”/Universal Pictures)
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That’s too bad. There hasn’t been a good alien abduction movie in a long time. If done right they can be very creepy.
This film is terrible and Milla Jovovich is such a bad actress and why does she keep getting work? The plot is ridiculous and all Milla Jovovich really does is pull funny faces. Why does she have such loyal fans? She is a really bad actress, if she has inspired anyone to act then God help them, they really need help! Please avoid this film it is horrible, with a different director and actors it could have been good and instead of making out the film was based on a true story they should have either not said it was based on a true story or looked for some material that was based on a true story.