Movie Review: I Am Number Four

Who am I to write a movie review of this action drama sci-fi movie? Huh. Fine.

I guess I’ll have to prove it to you, you merciless critics critiquing a critic himself. And because you asked for it, I’ll do this in bullet points. Numbered bullet points goddamnit!

1. Avid Sci-Fi Fan – Right from childhood I’ve been a true science fiction fan. I’ve consumed movies, cartoons, websites and comics in the right proportion of each, full of scientific blabbery and futuristic dollywop to pass off as ‘fiction’, and laced with my own inherent geek-dom, I have become a true sci-fi fan. Also, I love Star Wars and hate Star Trek (thoo), making me even more awesome.
2. Pyrotechnic Connoisseur – You got that right. I love seeing shit blown up. Warped into un-warpable-dimensions. Melted into a mangled mongoose of a mess. You see, it takes a lot to appreciate these things. To understand the subtle differences between a yellow flame and a yellow flame. And I, with my nose pointed straight up, am one of the very few to know that difference.
3. Ability to Weather the Worst – I’ve seen the movie Tashan, first-day first-show, and walked out alive. Enough said.

Before you come back with your numbered list of counter-attacks, let me proceed with a review of the movie “I Am Number Four”.

The Story

The movie centers around one person – John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) – a 15 year old teenager who keeps moving from city to city along with his guardian. (By the way, Pettyfer is 21 years old and no-way a teen). Anyways, he’s an alien. Oh bummer. One of the nine alien kids residing on Earth (“Number Four” – get it?) with his own personal guardian. He has hormones and will use them in the movie, along with inheriting badass powers post-puberty, such as Lumen (light from his hands) and higher jumping power, etc.

Henri (Timothy Olyphant) is John’s guardian and is confused by fellow Earthlings as his father, despite zero visual resemblance, but anyways. He’s mildly badass and has three computer screens with awesome graphics, apparently removing all their traces from the internet. His computer setup makes him look more like an Equity Trader in Goldman Sachs, but anyways. He dies.

Now John and Henri are hiding on Earth after the Mogadorians conquered their planet. Pretty much everyone from their race is wiped out. On Earth, this is called victory and everyone goes home. Of course aliens think differently, and the Mogadorian Commander (Kevin Durand) is on Earth to kill the 9 kids. He has a badass team (with tattoos) and some flying bat-like creatures the size of elephants. And cool laser plasma guns shooting red lava and blue lava. He dies.

Every movie needs a babe. Enter Sarah Hart (Dianna Agron), the previously-bitchy-cheerleader-now-artsy-photographer-babe who John happens to fall in love with. Forever. See, this is where my mind turned off. This movie is flooded with retarded romantic scenes and long inappropriate pauses and generally hopeless Twilight-style flat face acting. While Megan Fox held her ground on Transformers (we can argue that), Dianna Agron is just too non-unique to make an impact.

So let me recap. Hero. Check. Heroine. Check. Romantic hogwash. Check. Villain. Check. Action sequences that aren’t enough. Check. What remains is the sidekick. How about “Number Six”, another chick with sunglasses and a Ducati 848? Enter Teresa Palmer, another alien kid with cooler powers (teleportation) and better weapons. And no guardian. She doesn’t die.

All this happens in Paradise City, Ohio, when John joins school and meets Sarah along with other forgettables (geeky father-abducted-by-aliens Sam and college-hunk-bully Mark). Mogadorians look kickass and are getting closer in “sniffing” Number Four out. To kill him, remember? They’ve bumped off Number One, Two and Three, and they must continue in sequence for reasons known only to Rajnikanth.

So what do you think happens in the end?

Action and Romance

Here’s a secret. Trade secret. All, and I mean all, action scenes are in the trailer:

For a sci-fi fan (please see declaration earlier), I was left asking for more. I wanted more gun fights, more flinging-people-around, more Lumen shoomen and more bang.

(I will say this, however, that the ending slow-motion scene and long bassline while John shoots his Lumen at the Mogadorian commander, all this in a movie theatre was just mind-blowingly awesome!)

So. There wasn’t enough bada boom. Why? Because it replaced with stoofid romance. And long pauses. And corner-of-the-eye moments.

Why?

With such a pertinent question, you tend to nose around more. And realize what’s behind this movie. It’s based on a book (of the same name), which is in turn part of a series (and a book deal). And that book is marketed at 13-year old teens who’ve wasted their time reading the Twilight books. And will, henceforth, waste their time reading the Number saga.

You could say that their days are numbered.

The Verdict

There’s some great computer graphics out there, some moments of awesomeness. But overall, there’s mediocre acting and overzealous romantic crap. And in the end even the Caramelized Popcorn can’t get you out of this trouble.

4 out of 10.

 

*Hat Tip* Social Wavelength for the tickets to watch this show!

Images from the Wikipedia page and the IMDB movie site. Copyrights are theirs.

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