The Fourth Kind Brother

Either movies aren't reaching me the way they used to or I'm not finding and watching the good movies.  I think it's the latter.  Last week we watched The Fourth Kind and Brothers.  Neither were especially gripping for me.  Well, Brothers was certainly better than The Fourth Kind but just wasn't as intense as I'd imagined after seeing the preview (esp. because the preview made it look a bit steamier...).

The Fourth Kind

Movie description:

"In 1972, a scale of measurement was established for alien encounters. When a UFO is sighted, it is called an encounter of the first kind. When evidence is collected, it is known as an encounter of the second kind. When contact is made with extraterrestrials, it is the third kind. The next level, abduction, is the fourth kind. This encounter has been the most difficult to document...until now."

I did a little peeking on the interwebs and didn't find much support for the validity of the "actual" research the movie put out there.  This is in the Blair Witch film genre and doesn't do it that well.

Brothers

The movie descriptions I've found are long and are kind of spoilers.  So, I'll describe it this way: "Good" military brother (Tobey Maguire) with family (Natalie Portman and two little girls) dies in Afghanistan and "bad" ex-con brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) saves the day at home. 

There is some fantastic tension in the movie, both in America around dinner tables and in Afghanistan but I didn't walk away feeling blown away with the intense emotion and drama.  It felt a little two dimensional.  I am also not in a military family and don't have to go through all of the horrible stuff they go through everyday. 

So, there it is.