I Am Number Four (2011)

I think I'm getting old ... Either this, or my "head wheels" are not running very well again (to put it elegantly) ... Or both. The result is that from all the movies I've watched lately (quite a lot compared to my normal weekly rate), I've chosen for today probably the most lame title considering its value/rating. And this due to a total subjective criteria of a semi-nostalgic feeling for a period when the free time wasn't such a big problem. "I Am Number Four" is a SF having the main target somewhere in the 15-19 years old interval (if not even lower than that). And as I already suggested is a real catastrophe, mainly talking about the script (because the rest has some good parts though). Anyway, the script doesn't mean also the story, this one having some potential, and it's probably better to say a few words about that before going forward to the rest.

It is told that sometime in the Universe there was a planet whose inhabitants (having apparently a similar look to humans) were completely eliminated by another race called the mogadorians. With one exception. Nine of the children were sent in a safety exile accompanied by a guardian and something else (you'll find out in the movie) for protection. At least until they would have learned to use their inherited superpowers. Were was the exile ? Obviously on Earth. Anyway, it seems that the mogadorian "tradition" states something like a job is not done until it's done, so the nine were followed by a group from the overtaking race having the specific mission of "vaporizing" the escaped ones. Considering that (as a speculation, because the movie is not clear at all) the interplanetary traffic is probably not that simple, the mogadorian group wasn't large enough, or didn't have the means to carry the necessary tech to completely cleanse of life also this little blue primitive planet. So the tactic is to hunt the 9 one by one. What we have in the movie is pretty much this targeting the fourth victim, after the first three were finally and hardly killed after more then 10 years of hunting (probably either due to low mogadorian efficiency or too long vacations ...).

Like said before, the movie is terrible considering the script. There are lots of unexplained stuff that do not make any sense. Or even worse. If for the unexplained stuff you can invent an explanation by yourself in the end, you have the other category where the script becomes effectively stupid. This covers minor situations as impact in the story like - why in the world would you go in the middle of a party exactly through the local sheriff's son nose when you know you're on top on the "wanted" list to get on the upper floor of a house when you know you could superjump and sneak without being seen by anyone. But you have also much more important parts, like the one coming from the title (which seemed pretty stupid starting with the trailer). You don't get any clear explanation in the movie for the numbering thingy. Why number four ? And it's not related to the order in which it seems that the rest are killed... because at some point we get to meet number six. Let's just say it's a code, something like agent 007 applied for outer space aliens. Apparently this would hold as an explanation ... but ... in that case what's the idea of hunting and executing them in the order given by their number ? (and again ... when you get to number six the movie contradicts itself also on this part). Well ... it's a mess, and it's not the only example. You also have age differences that are unrealistic and other stuff. So, why am I spending time writing about this movie, then ...

Because, eventually I liked it. Despite everything above, it manages after all to bring you a coherent enough story to watch. And due to the general feeling of teen movie it reminds me of other times :) Besides that, we have though some good parts. One would be the effects. It's rare when it happens that I'm impressed of something in this area. And this because usually the stuff you get are variations of the same idea, explosions of different kinds, robots of different kinds, monsters of different kinds, etc. We have these also here. But I haven't seen telekinetic powers for quite a while ( pretty much since "use the force" from "Star Wars" - another nostalgic point hit :) ). So at least in what I'm concerned I was satisfied with the VFX more than with any other movie I've seen this year (and I've seen some serious contenders on this part). Something else to talk a bit about would be the soundtrack by Trevor Rabin. Search for main theme pe YouTube and you'll get just a short sample from what it offers. It's nice and relatively original both on the slow and on the alert tracks.

As a conclusion, something that it's easy noticeable (and also confirmed by the IMDb boards) would be the similarity as air/target/etc up to the "lame movie" qualifying with "Twilight". But it's not totally true. What I can say is that yes ... for the first part = air/target it's quite close probably. I've seen "Twilight" recently, only the first one, and by chance, because I was pretty convinced by the bad reviews to skip the series. It was indeed quite bad in almost all aspects, except for the story potential. With this in common, further, the difference is quite big in case of "I Am Number Four", and I've already explained it in what was mentioned above (well, "Twilight" has also a theme stolen from Yiruma - "River Flows in You" but I won't count this). And on top of that "I Am Number Four" has also another plus - the actior. Compared to "Twilight", here we might say that we have Oscar performances. And subjectively speaking :-p for guys, wait until you get to see number six in action ;).

Rating: 3 out of 5