I Am Number Four Review

Its been a long time since I blogged and I thought I shall do it on a movie review that I saw yesterday. I had been waiting a long time to see an action movie and had gone to watch "I Am Number Four".

It is Directed by D.J. Caruso and it is Starring Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Teresa Palmer. I had huge hopes on the script and direction, because it came from the guy who directed Eagle Eye & Disturbia. Both weren't what one would call has blockbusters, but still I liked these two movies and Disturbia was quite an awesome movie. I had thought he might bring in the next Shia LaBeouf, because I feel he is the guy who got him fame and name. But Alex Pettyfer was no Shia LaBeouf. He was more of a Robert Pattinson from Twilight. The script also at times did have familiar theme like Twilight.

The trailer, which I had posted some days ago had a lot of action and I was drawn to watch the movie based upon that trailer. The Trailer:

The  trailer did make an interesting watch and had a good gripping effect. The movie did have some effects like those and the climax had an awesome edge of seat action sequence lasting more than 10 minutes. The movie being produced by Micheal Bay had some similarities to transponders in the form of a character which reminded me of Bumble Bee, had a great character in Timothy Olyphant which was quite like Optimus. The movie was more like some mush from Twilight mixed with Transformers.

The movie is basically the story of John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) who is an alien who is being protected by a father figure Henri (Timothy Olyphant). The story is of 9 alien kids who escape the planet Lorien while it is being attacked by an evil species The ruthless Mogadorians, a rival race of tattooed aliens with gills on their faces and Big black shoes on their feet. They're also experts in the killing business, and they're on the trail of Lorien's nine special kids -- known as Number One through Number Nine -- whom they can kill only in chronological order. The movie starts with Number 3 being killed and Number 4 getting a signal for the same. Each time this happens Number 4 and his protector change identities and change the city of their residence.

The move after Number 3's murder is the same reason John and Henri move to tiny Paradise, Ohio, and set up a new life there. But although John is an alien, he's also a teenage alien, and he's not immune to typical adolescent turmoil: the pangs of romance, the trouble fitting in, the feelings of, well, of alienation. Visually, it's a great movie - the effects are very well done and especially all the light effects are very well done

The movie at times was quite slow with John walking Sarah (Dianna Agron) home and they smooching out and I also felt the villians were a bit too outrageous in their powers and at times the script became a bit cliched with certain sequences right out of Star Trek and Star Wars and the kind of space warrior movies. There are entertaining moments along the way, and some likeable characters. (One wonderfully truthful line, uttered by the class nerd about the school's quarterback/bully: "He's in the third year of the best four years of his life.")

The climax was really one big fight and there was an awesome fight scene with Number 6 (Teresa Palmer) kicking the ass of the Mogadorians with some fancy stunts and an entire High School becoming the fighting ground of the good guys vs the bad guys and in the end the good guys win with chest thumping action. The evil Mogadorian Commander played by Kevin Durand of 'Lost' fame does enough snarling to be enjoyable.

Still, you've got to believe its chances of repeating the runaway success of Stephenie Meyer's series are slim. Catching that kind of lightning in a bottle twice ranks right up there with the likelihood of convincing a sparking vampire not to just devour Kristen Stewart and be done with it. Likewise, you can't blame audiences if they don't get hot and bothered this movie.

It kept me entertained. I was hoping the movie would dig deeper into what happened on the home planet and who and where the remaining 9 were. Can't understand why it took the baddies so long to locate the first three. I see a strong potential for a sequel if not on the big screen then as a Mini-Series.

Snapshot: A teen sci-fi soap opera about a mysterious 15-year-old -- being pursued by lethal enemies -- who discovers powerful new abilities while trying to lay low in a tiny Ohio town. If you liked Transformers you'll most certainly like this one too.

I give the movie a 7/10 because of the acting, the effects, the pretty sweet action scenes, the dudes with fins on their cheeks and because it was able to raise a weird rage inside of me when the main bully was shaking up the nerd... I don't know why, but any kind of emotional effect is a success I guess.

It is a good watch for the 1 hour 50 minutes with the last action sequence really worth a one time watch.