The Fourth Kind Early Review!

I just got out of an early screening of the film The Fourth Kind, an alien abduction film "based on real case studies" by a psychiatrist in Nome, Alaska in 2000. Mila Jovovich plays Dr. Abigail Tyler, a psychiatrist taking over her husband's work after his death. When many of her patients explain they've been stalked at night by an owl watching from outside their windows, she becomes more and more intrigued and concerned. With help from the guy who played Casey Jones she delves into a mystery that becomes more and more disturbing.

At least I'd call it disturbing if it wasn't kinda lame.

The majority of this film is just Abbey talking to her patients, jumping back and forth with and split screening the actual footage as if to constantly say "Hey, guys! This is real!" Granted things DO actually happen. When putting the patients under hypnosis they begin to freak out, screaming, jumping off the couch, etc. But that's really it.

This film plays on the psyche, but it doesn't really do it well. It's just boring.

When things do become intense, the constant split-screen effect and overlapping audio of the actual footage made makes things hard to follow, especially when you can hardly understand what they're saying because the audio doesn't quite match up or they just don't enunciate while they're freaking out in their trance. Also, during these scenes the split screens are constantly moving, and changing sizes. They tend to jump back and forth between the footage and film randomly, as well, making it much less intense and much more annoying.

Bad editing and unnecessary scene transitions which often include mini montages of an owl, shots of Alaska, and random, bad, pointless cgi, much like the previous points mention, just take you out of the film.

This is being a bit nit-picky, but those little things do add up.

Aside from this, the acting was nothing special, there wasn't much of a story, and it just wasn't very entertaining.

The actual footage was kind of interesting and would have been a nice touch if it was cleverly woven in. However, it wasn't.

This wasn't a terrible film, but there was nothing notable, and it's definitely nothing very memorable. It one of those that's just there.