영화 <포스 카인드> 리뷰

<#289 Review>
 
Boarderline Case, The Fourth Kind
 
By Lee Ji-woo, Student Editor
 
The poster of The Fourth Kind
What makes a movie successful? Some will say it is the actors or a unique visual style. But most will agree with me to a degree.  I think a movie must have an interesting story, and it must be believable, at least while you are in the theatre.  Using these criteria, I can say the movie, The Fourth Kind’ is a ‘loser’.
The movie is about an alien and the people who are abducted by the alien. It is set in Alaska, U.S.A, in the year 2000. The visual style is unique compared to ordinary movies. It employs a split screen, showing two scenes in one frame at the same time. One scene is a real person’s own pictures about an alien (according to the movie’s narration) and the other scene is a reconstruction of the story performed by actors. So, watching this movie at first, I was a little confused by the story telling style.  However, as time went by, I became easily absorbed in the movie and then started to believe that the story was real. I felt like I was watching a real documentary, not a performance.
 
In the middle of The Fourth Kind’ when the audience was shown some clues for the mysterious happenings, I became strongly disappointed with this movie. The development of the mystery was too unrealistic and the ending provided no real message. What was worse, I was starting to doubt the movie’s ‘facts’. At the end of the movie, the heroine says to the audience, “Believe it or not, it’s up to you.” The movie did not make me believe in aliens and I did not find the story was well told. Later I learned that this movie is a kind of fake documentary. It is hard to find any credible materials about the real people in the movie, there were many fake stories on the Internet released by the film’s producer, Universal Studios. (This film company was accused of false advertising by the Alaska Press Club.)
Nevertheless, as the movie is about alien abduction, it should not give up the possibility that it could happen. Even though The Fourth Kind tried to use unique cinematic techniques in order to make the audience believe that the story was real, they should admit they failed to do it. It is not a documentary, nor a movie. The hybrid genre of this movie did not add to the credibility of the story. I just thought the movie was absurd.  
저작권자 © Chonnam Tribune 무단전재 및 재배포 금지