Why This is Good

Like The Box, I had high hopes for The Fourth Kind. The trailer intrigued me enough to make me Google the so-called “facts” surrounding the movie. There is a lot of controversy out there as to whether the film is truly based on real events and video footage, as it claims to be. The final verdict seems to be that no, it was all invented for the movie, which is clearly the most logical explanation. Conspiracy theorists abound, and there are gullible people out there eager to believe this actually happened.

The dramatization of the events was presented in a combination of split screens, featuring the footage of interviews with the victims of alien abduction, while the actors simultaneously portrayed the events going on in the “real” footage. This added to the tension, keeping your eyes and your mind darting back and forth between both versions of the events. It was also, at times, disorienting and drew attention to the fact that we were watching a film, almost a documentary, which prevented the complete emotional involvement in the story that is necessary for a truly successful film.

It was hard to completely suspend my disbelief and buy the gimmick that these events really happened, because they were trying so hard to make you believe. This drew attention to the fact that the story alone wasn’t good enough to stand on its own. There’s no need to pretend events unfolding on screen are real in order to get audiences to enjoy a movie. Nearly every movie we see is a made up story, and if it is told well, it doesn’t matter because we become emotionally engaged in watching the characters experience the imagined events.

The story meanders, the heroine is hard to sympathize with, and the events are never really explained or resolved. If this was a documentary based on true events, it would be a poor retelling, but nonetheless fascinating because it had actually happened. If the writers merely wanted to entertain us, they should have stuck to good storytelling, sans gimmicks, and we wouldn’t have cared whether or not it was based on true events.