Super-Serb Milla Jovovich is back, this time as an Alaskan psychiatrist treating patients who are experiencing startlingly similar, apparently terrifying, dreams. No, not dreams of a Sarah Palin Presidency – though that’d be scary enough for me. Rather, they each have been kidnapped by aliens, had their inside bits fiddled about a bit with, and have been dumped back on terra firma with their memories (imperfectly) wiped. Milla tries to uncover what the frak is going on, but being Alaskan and therefore with, what?, like a half-term experience of actually being a doctor, she blunders about with some of the most inappropriate, ill-advised and under-supervised treatments known to medical science. It doesn’t end well. It also ends in 5000 year old Sumerian, so you must know.
The Fourth Kind purports to be a true story based on secret FBI papers or something, and the film occasionally split-screens so you can see the home video footage in real life of the character Milla’s playing. Except it’s not real life, really, just a homelier actress with worse lighting. Perhaps the lack of authenticity comes from having avoided filming in Mama Grizzly territory altogether and having shot in Bulgaria instead? (no Nome tundra, just lots of lush, leafy mountains; odd.) Oh I don’t know, I don’t want to be too harsh, because I do love a Milla movie from time to time. But this isn’t really even a very good X-Files episode and I thought that was a bit of a disappointment.