STUDIO: Universal | DIRECTOR: Olatunde Osunsanmi | CAST: Milla Jovovich, Will Patton, Elias Koteas
RELEASE DATE: 3/16/2010 | PRICE: DVD$29.98, Blu-ray
$36.98
BONUSES: deleted scenes, two BD Live featurettes, Pocket Blu, Social Blu
SPECS: PG-13 | 98 min. | Horror | 2:35:1 | DTS-HD, DVS Dolby Digital 2.0 audio | Spanish and French subtitlesRATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie
| Audio
| Video
Director-writer Olatunde Osunsanmi does his best to reinforce the idea that the story of The Fourth Kind is not fiction, but that’s also the downfall of the movie.
The film attempts to dramatize the testimony of Dr. Abigail Tyler, a former psychologist in Nome, Alaska, who claims to have evidence of alien abductions — including herself. Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil: Afterlife) portrays the movie version of Tyler, but her scenes are interspersed with footage of the real Tyler talking about a series of strange events from October 2000.
The movie also includes actual footage of some of Tyler’s patients, matched up with the movie version in a kind of “See, we’re doing it just like the real thing” way. At the beginning, before the story has picked up, this use of split-screen is distracting more than interesting.
The story does pick up about halfway through, however, and then it’s kind of like watching a freak show, not sure how much is smoke and mirrors and how much really is real.
The Blu-ray picture is fine, with Alaska’s beautiful scenery in full view, but the best part of the whole experience is the audio. Any home theater with a decent subwoofer will have viewers jumping out of their seats. I’m pretty sure I could hear our video collection rattling in the cupboard.
Universal has kept the special features package small, with just deleted scenes on both the Blu-ray and DVD. But the Blu-ray does have some other techy features: the studio’s Pocket Blu, which allows you to use your iPhone as a remote, and Social Blu, which allows you to update social networks.
The Blu-ray also has two featurettes — “The Four Kinds” and “Marie D. Jones Discusses The Fourth Kind” — but they’re only available via BD Live, an odd limiting choice for Universal, but one to no doubt push use of BD Live.
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She’s so hot
Yeah, the movie does have that going for it, but she doesn’t have guns and boots in this one.
This year’s smaller overall bounty may also be due to the “Avatar” effect. James Cameron’s 3-D epic has become such a juggernaut that it has collected $111 million of the $135 million in ticket sales generated by best picture nominees since the nominations.