“It’s not an owl.”
Swift shot: Whether you want to believe or just want to have your mind screwed with for about 100 minutes, this flick will juice your heart and crank your imagination. A bit slow paced, but delivers where it needs to. The split-screen reality vs. fiction convention got old at times and really detracted from the authenticity – which was the opposite effect desired by the creators. Still, a great flick for the curious cats out there.
The Fourth Kind enters with a disclaimer from actress Milla Jovovich, who portrays “real life” Dr. Abbey Tyler – a warning that what you are about to see is both true and disturbing. She lays out some facts and claims all the scenes are based on either witness testimony, video or tape footage. After the film I heard many people asking, do you think it was real? Someone asked me directly and I just smiled. I’d advise watching the film before you do any research on the veracity of the archived footage -that was what I did anyway.
This pseudo-documentary centers on Doctors William & Abbey Tyler, professors in Nome, Alaska working on a study to explain many residents claims of insomnia . . . accompanied by a strange vision – an owl. Dr. William Tyler is never seen in the movie, as he was dead at the onset of the film, and this case becomes an obsession for his wife, raising two children without a father. The death of William Tyler was so traumatic that Abbey’s youngest child, Ashley Tyler (Mia Bruce) loses her sight through conversion disorder. Her oldest, Ronnie, grows up before his time, and the kid who played him was so sub-par imdb.com doesn’t even list him, that’s a first.
Dr. Tyler soon finds herself under the accusatory watch of Sheriff August, well depicted by Will Patton, following a tragic incident with one of her patients. Things start to go bump in the night and the pace picks up a bit as she invites one of her colleagues, Dr. Abel Campos (Elias Koteas) to assist with these strange owl sightings.
While the title gives away certain elements of the film, there are still complex and disturbing themes that should leave a mark. Writer/Director Olatunde Osunsanmi does an excellent job of sporadically exploding with terror in a way that doesn’t come across as cheesy or forced and with incredibly believable footage.
Much like Blair Witch in 1999, I imagine this will be researched ad nauseum and both sneered at by nay-sayers and held up as a banner for believers that we are not alone. For my part, I know what I believe, only a small mind can put a finite end to our universe. Once you accept that there are no boundaries to our universe, how can you limit your imagination to fool yourself that we are alone? I guess for those that want to sleep at night, maybe it is “just an owl.”
