The Fourth Kind…of a waste of time

Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Will Patton, Charlotte Milchard

In a good English language movie, such as A Perfect Getaway, Milla Jovovich’s acting is transparent.  She does not add to the movie, does not distract, and lets the professionals carry the movie.  In this way, she is much like Penelope Cruz.  Jovovich has been the object of desire for many men who like movies like Resident Evil series.  Plenty of slow-motion shots with Milla scantily clad falling, shooting weapons or both.  These films have a place in the world of many American fathers…particularly, Friday night, after the wife and kids are put to bed.

The 4th Kind is a movie that imagines itself a movie tied to a documentary, only in this case, the documentary is a bunch of actors as well, hence, part of the movie.  It is an experiment, to be sure, kind of like Paranormal Activity cut and spliced with Poltergeist.  Often times, the screen is spliced into simultaneous halves, thirds and quarters.  This is an adventurous attempt, but a failed one.  The splicing is distracting, especially when the vocal tracks are overlaid, but different.  What were they attempting to accomplish with this?  My guess is that it they thought it gave more credence to the “based on true events” angle.   It didn’t.

The story starts out with an extremely severe looking Charlotte Milchard, recounting the death of her therapist-husband to a therapist/ancient languages expert.  This segues into her “movie” counterpart, Jovovich.  The difference between the two is so jarring, the movie never recovers.  I have nothing against Milchard, but she was so extremely hard to look at, if I never see her in another film, I will be just fine.

The death of her husband spurs Jovovich, who is also a therapist, into working with a series of patients who wake up in the middle of the night and see white owls, just hanging around.  The sessions lead to one of the patients performing a horrible act of desperation.  This leads to more therapists, leading to more desperation.

Koteas is wasted here.  Relegated to reaction shots and expressions of disbelief.  I understand why he would do something of this nature, having done good work with great directors like David Fincher (Zodiac and …Benjamin Button) before.  The premise is intriguing.  The execution and overall story just is not.  Patton does about as much as you can with his role as the disbelieving Sheriff.

If you don’t know what the “4th Kind” refers to, just think of what Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind refers to…but really, to spend more time describing this movie might actually lead one to believe that I think they spent an inordinate amount of time coming up with the story.  I am picturing Griffin Mill, kicking back, explaining why we don’t need writers anymore.  We do.

* out of *****