Here’s a post about the validity of the film’s “documentary footage” and true story claim. Review below.
Milla Jovovich, bathed in white light, steps into the foreground. As the camera circles her and abruptly changes angles, the actress delivers a spiel about the film’s production, its authenticity, our freedom to draw our own conclusions, and she wraps things up with the caveat that “some of what [we]’re about to see is disturbing.”
If you start things off with a proclamation like that, you’d better have the goods to back it up.
Set in a small town in northern Alaska in October 2000, the movie purports to use real video and audio from various interviews conducted by Dr. Abbey Tyler with several of her patients who were experiencing alien encounters in conjunction with dramatizations of those interviews and events. With that premise, one would think having convincing documentary footage would be the logical place to start. One would be wrong.
Right off the bat, “The Fourth Kind” can’t get its act together. The footage that kicks off the actual feature is of Dr. Tyler being interviewed by the film’s director, Olatunde Osunsanmi, and it’s so awkward and obviously scripted that the immediate effect is incredulity.
This persists throughout the entire film. None of the footage is convincing and the insinuation that it’s authentic becomes insulting. It doesn’t do itself any favors when it goes into split screen, either, showing the dramatized action alongside its allegedly real counterpart, often revealing the former to be more startling.
With that crippling problem set aside, Jovovich, playing Dr. Tyler, turns in a surprisingly decent performance. She’s convincing as a woman grieving the death of her husband while juggling motherhood and her duties as a psychologist.
Elias Koteas is good, too, as her visiting colleague who champions hard evidence, the scientific method and…yet…denies the validity of his own extraterrestrial encounter later on in the film.
And Hakeem Kae-Kazim as Dr. Awolowa Odusami (said to be an alias), a scholar of ancient languages, provided the film’s one sincere moment of intrigue and disturbance when he discussed the relationship between aliens and ancient Sumeria.
But then we have Will Patton as Sheriff August (another alias) who brings things to a screeching halt with his self-aware, arbitrarily hostile and unreasonable antics which make no sense and do further damage to the credibility the film so desperately needs.
He acts the way only a character in a bad movie would: ignoring evidence, making hasty, irrational decisions that negatively affect just about everyone, withholding basic information about Tyler’s husband’s death without purpose. Did Osunsanmi honestly think we wouldn’t find his character insufferable?
If for nothing else, the film fails by not living up to its own hefty proclamation. It isn’t scary in the slightest. The interviews seem fake and so much of the action borrows from “The Exorcist” and other possession films that it’s laughable. The scares that do occur are simply surprises and couldn’t haunt you if they wanted to.
I have a friend who’s never watched “E.T.” all the way through because he’s terrified of aliens. Just the other day, he was whining to me about being bullied into seeing “Signs” in theaters and how it nearly ruined his life. This wouldn’t faze him.
You bring up some valid points, but I am going to completely disagree with your review as a whole. Especially with your silly closing line.
Josh, have you seen it yet? I couldn’t tell 100% from your comment. If so, what do you disagree with and why?
I just saw the movie. The story regardless of the validity is very scary so your statement “It isn’t scary in the slightest” just proves your are a poor critic or at worst a hack. Your are definitely a non-scientist assuming the re-life footage is accurate. It simply shows the raw footage. I will do my own research to prove/disprove to my self regarding the validity of the “authentic” film footage. The validity on the surface appeared very compelling. In your case again you provide no specific examples of evidence that the original footage was faked in the most important areas.
How an individual that has never heard of the Sumatran language would speak it is impossible to explain within normal bounds.
How an individual who is clearly ill can levitate above a bed is impossible to explain within normal bounds.
How all of these individuals had the same common experiences and psychosis with similar loss of memory is impossible to explain within normal bounds.
As others have said I also suspect you did not see the same movie I did.
did you (John) even follow the link in the opening sentence above the review? Here’s one explanation for the speaking in tongues and levitating: its a movie and the footage was faked for it. Are we supposed to take this as gospel just because a hollywood films says its real? The link actually says that many of the “real” characters may have never actually existed, masked thinly in the film by use of an alias and that alcohol was a major factor. As a skeptic, atheist, and scientist, any “evidence” offered on even a film that was a documentary and not just a dramatization with “real” footage in it would have to be pretty watertight and be able to be corroborated, especially concerning ghosts, alien possessions etc due to the virtual impossibility of the claim.
sorry the alcoholism part should be in another sentence as the link above says that the FBI an actual existing organisation concluded that alcoholism was responsible for disappearences and it would appear, much of the fabrication/exaggeration of events
I watched it last night and I’m CONVINCED that what I saw was real!! It has totally left my girlfriend and I extremely unsettled. It bugs me how sceptical you are. Does an alien have to come and slap you in the face for you to believe?!
“Critics” and all,
In regards to this movie, and to our existence in general, the question that plagues me is, why must one always have proof of something? This movie states very clearly that “it’s up to you to decide what you believe”. I found this movie quite disturbing, and found myself still unsettled nearly an hour after having left the theater, but my reasons for this are far removed from what most might assume. But, alas, I will not share those reasons with you. Why? Because I am free to believe what I will, and I need no one’s approval to validate those beliefs. No matter what ANYONE believes, though, there will always be things in this life that lie beyond the realm of explaination or proof, and the naivety of humankind to dismiss anything that doesn’t come neatly packaged in an envelope marked “evidence”, is laughable at best. The details of whether or not the footage in authentic, or even if you did or didn’t like the movie, are moot. Find some friends to discuss your opinions with, instead of thinking that any stranger on the other end of a keyboard even cares in the slightest what you think.
“instead of thinking that any stranger on the other end of a keyboard even cares in the slightest what you think”
why would you post then. You are free to believe anything you like but please don’t label people naive for wanting some tiny speck of evidence to base their beliefs on. There are things humanity has not explained yet so lets just put everything we don’t understand down to aliens, thats more logical. Remember humanity used to have no knowledge of gravity, if you had lived before the time of Newton would you have put the fact that we’re not floating around down to aliens?
Never did I say anything about evidence not being important, nor did I in any way reference that we should “just put everything we don’t understand down to aliens”; maybe you should read more slowly.
I don’t expect that you would care what I think, anyway. On the rare occasion I post a comment on something, I make it a point to promote open thinking. If I’m going to like a movie, it’s because I SAW it first, not because somebody else told me they did or didn’t like it. Wouldn’t you agree that’s a fair way of treating things? In the same respect, if I’m going to believe something, it’s not going to be because Hollywood told me it’s real or because you told me it isn’t; it will be based on my own explorations, experiences, and discoveries.
The simple truth is, I stumbled across this site while trying to find some actual articles regarding the events of the movie. Sadly, the search engines results are clogged with page after page of people shouting their opinions to the world, and I became frustrated. So I gave in to temptation and wrote a bit of my opinion as well. My mistake.
But, you are right, I shouldn’t be bothering wih this any longer, lest I negate my own arguments or have my words misinterpreted again. Guess I’ll just go do some more exploring and figure things out for myself.
Well, it definitely was better than Paranormal Activity. In my opinion of course.
“Never did I say anything about evidence not being important” even though you clearly said “why must one always have proof of something?”, inferring that proof is not important, and to have proof you need evidence therefore you suggest evidence is not important.
I was not commenting on the films artistic merits or ability to unnerve people but rather that the film obviously does not show true alien abduction events because of the impossibility of it. If you enjoyed the movie because it was a good movie then fine, but if you now believe in the supernatural and aliens because of it then you are a fool because it is obvious that they do not exist and that the scenes in the film are not real. You also state that you “promote open thinking” but then despair at the fact that other people have voiced their opinions on the movie and are annoyed at the fact that someone is challenging you to think about your own view of it.
Sorry, I don’t check this site enough. Clearly this thread has come upon some heated debate, and i don’t have enough time to sit here and read it at work. However, I will quickly expand on what I had to say earlier. First, I am realizing that this movies “fear-factor” totally hinges on the whether or not you believe the “Case Footage” is real or not. I have always been a sissy for abduction theories, and they always get me going. SO, I am on the believer side i guess. While watching the movie, i was getting chills. I have NEVER had that in a movie before. I have to say acting wise, Will Patton was the downfall; coming on a little strong. But otherwise the acting was believable and fun to watch. Other than the director being a bad choice for the interviewer, I found no qualms with the actual interview segments. To my point, about the closing line: clearly, from the other posters, if you believe the footage then you find this to be a better film. So if you are scared of E.T., you better believe you will be shitting yourself over this movie.
that was the biggest waste of time in my life reading that…no one has any proof that the movie is fake either ….
Guys, watched the film and enjoyed it to be honest. But it’s a Sci-Fi FILM and thats’ it. Why this opinion you ask? I have lived in Nome, Alaska for 38 years. Yes some people have gone missing as well as other people throughout the USA and some of these beg explanation. The film shows Nome as a valley, it’s actually flat with one tiny hill that I run up and down regularly. Most of the sheriffs we have had are quiet homely men. I’ve known all of them and none would react this way. For something like this to happen in my town I’d know. To add to that I would like to beleive and, do beleive in extra terrestrial life but I think there are more exciting places than my beloved nome. Good entertainment though and will probably boost our visitor numbers for all the wrong reasons. I think I may open a “little green cafe”.
William, that was an awesome post. Thanks.
I wish I could explain myself why I care about reading your comments, Phil Fava, you are really scared, aren’t you ? Criticism is a good mechanisme of defense and really helps to deal with the unknown, so far the only proof achieved with your assessment.
ok, another person who wants to say this story is untrue. well first off, me actually being a person who has studied massively on the sumerians/akkadians and also the annunaki, id like to say i like this movie alot. First off, if any of you knew, that yes, the sumerians were the first civilization, and also FACT= they say that we came from a race of giants that ruled us before the great flood, FACT=They have drawings of rockets, space ships/space suits, laboratorys, giant aliens with the e.t heads next to smaller man like figures…. it gets weirder and weirder. So, if you were going to goto the source for info, would you goto something before the first civilization?? NO. YOU GOTO THE SOURCE. point blank. My theory on this movie? regardless if its real or not? is this. The being that took over her body or whatever you want to say, is an annunaki god, now, if you ever knew about our creators, the annunaki (following the first people on the planet) were a horrible mean, evil, bloodthirsty group of giants (with alien heads) that created man from a prior man that was already on this planet ( that right there would fill the gap in for the missing link, the annunaki created us! makes damn good sense!) they used us for slave work, that right there would put in the reason why we always have to have a slave system of everything, government,people,etc…. well im not going to explain what really is going on on this planet. and also, they guy who said how can we speak a dead language?? um, well, actually, the way we can usually do that is by following languages. Sumerians never died out, there language became infused with the Akkadian language a new language in the mesopotamian region at the time that was built of sumerian, which has vast simularitys, not the same but also, not too far off. and also, trust me, if they can do half the shit they do, then they can speak a language theyve never heard. its called mathematics. And also, whoever wrote this is a douche, thats just my opinion actually. you remind me of that kid i used to beat up next door all the time. His daddy bought him everything and he was brainwashed into believing everything the government said. hahaha. go back to the hamptons….
Detroit, no one is disputing that the Sumerians etc did not exist or that there is such a thing as aliens. Try actually reading what they have written. For someone who has done a lot of “studying” perhaps you should try studying the english language first and get to grips with it before studying other languages. As for being the guy next door who beat me up, I doubt that very much. I’m a logger with a MSc is GIS. To the uneducated thats someone with a little brain power and dedication to study as well as a body that would scare the crap out of you. As for your Facts get them right, I can recommend quite a few books for you if you wish
I went to see this film last week and am still unsettled by its contents. When I left the cinema I was convinced that there was some truth in the whole thing and this really frightened me. So what did I do, I opened up my lap top and decided the only way to calm myself down was to research it and find out whether it was in fact true. It seems some people who have posted comments on here are at the top of the class as far as debate is concerned. However I do not want a debate, like many others, just wanted to know whether I needed to be having a panic attack every night. Although there are good arguments for both sides, there are clearly more non beleivers of the film than there are. It also seems after many google searches that I am unable to find any information on any of these events that allegedly took place in Nome. The power of the internet is too great for this to be so if these events had actually happened.
I saw the movie last night and like Sophie and some of the others I can also say that I was extremely unsettled by what I saw. I have always been intrigued by UFO documentaries. I do believe the audio tracks and video footage used in the movie was real. I have not seen or read of any proof that says it is not real. I am not interested in debating with anyone on what they believe or don’t believe about the movie. Like some people I am only interested in the facts of this story. I have also tried online searches but don’t have the time to go through the thousands of hits returned. If anyone has come across one or more legitimate sites that offer valid information on this story please post for myself and the other truth seekers. I will do the same.
Just seen the film and found it very entertaining, I use the word entertaining because that is what films do entertain us. A few of the people I was sitting with did literally jump out of their seats at one moment. But I don’t think anyone felt particularly scared throughout the film. I did find it interesting but the part that looked potentially faked to me was a scene when Dr. Abbey Tyler was being hypnotized and her face expressions and the wide opening of her mouth and her eyes looking like they were popping out of her skull looked very much like a cartoon rather than real documentary footage. Unfortunately with a film of this nature once you begin to see things that look impossible in it, then this does bring into question the validity of the claim that the documentary footage is real. If it was faked and I am not saying that it was because I still don’t know, then I would have much preferred to have just seen a straight film along exactly the same story line but not a film trying to pretend it was real by showing fake documentary evidence. I think it could have been just as scary if not more scary had it had played itself out as a scary movie not a film based on a scary event that had not happened. This might seem like I’m moaning but I’m not I really liked this film and would recommend it for others to see and it does make you think hence when I get home from seeing the film I for the first time in my life after seeing a film get online and find out what other people’s views are about the film are.