There are three kinds of movies - ones you love and can watch over and over again, ones that are tolerable and that you wish maybe you had just rented instead of spent the money to see in theater and finally, movies that make you sick to your stomach to even admit to other people that you saw.
Many movies can quickly be classified into these simple categories, which is a great convenience to us, the viewer, when describing them to other people.
However, there comes a time when veteran movie goers bring out a fourth, secret ranking. The fourth kind of movie is one that many will never experience, and one that one should never pray to experience.
The fourth kind of movie is a film that makes you lose faith in the hope that humanity will ever move forward in a positive direction.
Sadly, and ironically, this is where the movie "The Fourth Kind" will lay to rest. The movie had a lot of hype. The previews looked promising, which is always the case, but once you got into the seat, you were quickly wishing you hadn't.
Dr. Abby Tyler, played by Milla Jovovich, is a psychologist who, along with her husband, has been living in Nome, Alaska, investigating the weird reports coming from its citizens about alien abductions.
The movie switches back and forth between the remake version, with Jovovich, and "actual" footage taken during the supposed real Tyler's interviews with patients, (I am going to go out on a limb and say that they too were actors, but call me crazy.)
We go through interview scenes where patients are asked to recall the moment the "aliens" came into their rooms to abduct them, which then causes them to react violently. Sort of like Bill O'Reilly when presented with facts he doesn't understand.
Tyler herself even reacts strangely when asked to recount her own abduction after she herself seeks hypnosis therapy from a fellow psychologist played by Elias Koteas.
Remember "Blair Witch" and god forbid you actually paid to see "Paranormal Activity?" Yeah, this movie is about as good as those. Filled with build up moments, meant to keep you gripping tightly to the edge of your seat and leading to a scary finish, which by the time you finally reach the end you find yourself asking, "What the hell just happened?"
Apparently it's not hard to write a script, submit it to a studio and then get a movie deal.
With the consistent lack of anything worthwhile coming out in the "realistic suspense" genre, apparently that is where I should head if I want to make money making terrible, nonsense movies.
The dialogue in the movie was ridiculous, and that is being kind. The child actors sucked. Milla tried way too hard to convince me that she had any mental health background, which is surprising since she is obviously crazy because she agreed to do this film.
Final result, movie was bad, I'm disappointed, but feel better about the direction in life I am going as I leave the theater.
The point I want you to take home? If aliens are trying to take people, want to keep it secret and tell you in a thousand year old language to back off. I would suggest doing it.
Alaska, where all our good looking women are therapists or politicians, but alas they are dumb.
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