I’m going to level with you. This alien abduction thriller starring Milla Jovovich purports to be based on real reports, but it’s really just Fire in the Sky meets The Blair Witch Project, a remarkably convincing but completely fictional tale that effectively unnerved me more often than not.
Set in 2000, it starts out with Jovovich as herself explaining to us how an unusually large number of people just vanished from Nome, Alaska over a 40-year period, and how the psychiatrist she portrays concluded that not only were they snatched up by extraterrestrials, but that it’s still going on.
In selling his hoax, writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi shows both so-called “raw” footage and the dramatization of it. At times he even employs 24-style split screens so we can watch both at the same time, a hi-tech trick I thought heightened the film’s tension but indeed may distract others. He also makes sure the footage goes all wonky whenever something otherworldly occurs.
Not to shortchange Jovovich or her co-stars, but the movie succeeds or fails on how believable Osunsanmi makes the video footage, most of which shows allegedly real people experiencing terror while under hypnosis. I believed it. We see one guy flail about and smash a lamp, while another starts to gurgle and then, later, suddenly sits up in bed and screams before starting to levitate.
I also very nearly bought into the infomercial-like interview of the “real” psychiatrist by a “real” Chapman University doctor (played by Osunsanmi himself). The woman playing the psychiatrist in these scenes does probably the best acting job in the movie. As well the audio recording of something terrorizing Jovovich in the middle of the night made my skin crawl a little.
The dramatization stuff isn’t quite as scary, but it is stylishly shot, well-edited and features solid work by a soft-spoken Jovovich (who gets to cry a lot), the always-welcome Will Patton as the frustrated sheriff and Elias Koteas as Jovovich’s friend and fellow psychiatrist. As the “film” version of said “doctor” and ancient languages expert, Hakeem Kae-Kazim also makes a decent impression.
All in all, I think, Osunsanmi proves himself a masterful salesman. Even the what’s-happened-since-these-events updates at the end the film seem authentic. And yet, he never convinced me to move to Alaska, despite all the breathtaking shots of snow-covered mountains. I mean, c’mon, telling me the place is a veritable haven for Martians that kidnap humans makes for a lousy sales pitch. – [DVD]
Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller
Rated PG-13
DVD Release Date: 3/16/10