Just so...so bad

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I love alien movies so I thought I'd give this a try. HORRIBLE. I knew from Milla's introduction that it would probably be a waste of time. The "real" testimonials were interesting but not believable. I did a little research. Come to find out this whole story is made up. Yes, there were disappearances in Nome but they were from alcohol or freezing related incidents, NOT aliens. Also, if the fourth kind was abducting people, I HIGHLY doubt they'd use a human's language for communication. The filmmakers even tried to make a credible website for Dr. Tyler which was also fake. Dr Tyler is an actress, not a real person. Please save yourself some time and skip this movie altogether.

In remote Nome Alaska, a psychologist has discovered her patients may be part of a mass alien abduction. She later realizes that she is also a victim of the same. In order to make the movie seem realistic they juxtaposition "actual tapes" into the movie. The acting is good and the movie seems very realistic. Now for the bogus points(possible plot spoilers): The aliens spoke Sumerian. No one on earth knows what the dead language sounded like. Plus the language had so many variations and dialects ... That whole translation stuff was bogus. 2) The tapes? Let's see, abduction, murder, suicide, missing people...I think those tapes would be locked away in an evidence vault as well as using actual tapes would violate all patient-doctor ethical standards. Third, there are no aliens visiting earth. Fourth, we all know aliens abduct people in Mississippi, not Alaska. If you are interested in the astral-religion of Sumeria and of the Bible, may I suggest "On Earth as it is in Heaven, The Cosmic Roots of the Bible" by Michael Ledo.Dilmun was actually more advanced than Sumeria and the Akkadians were the real brains behind Sumeria. Most people don't realize those facts, all they know is Sumeria from the 12th Planet nonsense. Apparently they didn't consult a real expert in Sumerian before they made the movie.If you like reality type movies such as that dog, "Paranormal Activities," this movie may be for you.

DISCLAIMER: I am aware of the controversies surrounding this movie. The fact that it's marketing team abused real life cases of disappearances and deaths in Nome Alaska as promotional material with total disregard for the families and friends of the victims. As deplorable as this is, I will judge this movie objectively and will not be taking these controversies into account when I give my final score for this movie. REVIEW: "The Fourth Kind" is a movie in the mockumentary genre. It starts off with Milla Jovovich breaking the fourth wall and informing us that she is an actress portraying a real character, she even calls herself Milla Jovovich. This seems like a horrible decision on the director's part, especially when it's done in the opening of the movie as it destroys the audience's immersion.What makes this decision even more puzzling is that they show you the "real" footage alongside the re-enactment in a split screen. Which basically nullifies the point of the re-enactment entirely and only serves to further destroy the audience's immersion. It also didn't help that the "real" Dr. Abbey Tyler looks nothing like Milla Jovovich, which means you'll constantly have to remind yourself that those two are supposed to be the same person in the story. But perhaps the biggest flaw is that the movie is a total drag. Who knew Alien abductions could be this boring? Basically it's: 20% long shots of people driving, 50% people screaming, 30% pointless dialoguing. You don't get to see any aliens, you occasionally get to hear them speak though. Apparently they speak Sumerian, which is a real middle-eastern language from around 3000BC. Ironically the Sumerian language went extinct at around 2000BC, so it's basically the most useless language you could possibly speak if you're trying to communicate with people in 2017. And in the movie they make no attempt at explaining why they speak it, which might have made it somewhat interesting and creative. Apparently the directors thought the ending plot twist was so good that we'd forget about the first 1.2 hours of the movie. Unfortunately the plot twist was already easily predictable in the first 10 minutes of runtime and there's nothing worse than a movie which tediously builds up to a forgone conclusion. I award this borefest a 4/10. The only good thing about "The Fourth Kind" was Milla Jovovich's stellar acting performance, but even that couldn't save it.

It's always a bit fun when a found footage movie affirms to be real footage and sticks with that claim throughout the film. You get to play along with the filmmakers and hopefully get a satisfying horror flick out of it. Movies like Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project did this well, but some movies are a bit too ardent about their authenticity and come off as silly. The Fourth Kind fits somewhere in the ladder category. In The Fourth Kind, the town of Nome, Alaska is plagued by mysterious disappearances, murders and suicides in the early 2000's. A psychologist, Abbey Taylor, head hypnosis sessions with various patients whose stories seem to have distinct similarities, and Abbey realizes that she might be tormented by the same thing that afflicts her patients. The film mostly mixes found footage with dramatized versions of the footage, sometimes showing the "real" and dramatized portions side-by-side. For the most part, it's just aggravating. You'll hear the same dialog from two different actors at the same time on occasion, which begs the question why they didn't either go all-in with the found footage. The found footage scenes are the most intense parts of the films. Not necessarily scary, but they are visceral enough to be memorable. The dramatized scenes are melodramatic and dull. Surprisingly, the movie would have been much better if it was completely found footage. The Fourth Kind has some effective stretches here and there, but it's mostly a half-baked affair.