Posts tagged ‘movie review’

“I Am Number 4″ (Movie Review)

"What am I?.... I'm Number 4? That's creative..."

[Written By: K1ng Eljay]

Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Thriller

Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, action, and for language.

Truthfully, this was one of the movies I was excited to see. I’d been wanting to see a solid action movie for some time, and even though I felt like the hero of I Am Number 4 would play out with powers that parallel that of a modern-day Jedi from Star Wars, it wasn’t enough to deter me away from taking a chance on hoping that was the only flaw with the movie. Starring Alex Pettyfer and Timothy Olyphant (who’s by far the most recognizable actor in this movie; most notably in The Crazies and Live Free or Die Hard), Number 4 centers around an alien teenager named “John” that’s on the run as the last of his kind are being hunted down by an alien race.

"What? No, I'm not a model. Why do you ask?"

The Good:  The one thing I wanted to see in this movie was action, and when it finally got rolling it was incredibly well-done. From chase scenes to a somewhat epic climax ending on a football field (spoiler?), the few actions scenes that are here are visually stunning. Also, as far as acting, there’s nothing BAD I can say about the actors, per say. They seemed to do solid jobs following the script, so I can’t exactly fault them for the final result. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the banter between Sam (Callan McAuliffe) and John.

The Bad: If the short paragraph above is any indication of how I feel about this movie, then you’ll know that I feel that there are several things that make this movie not worth watching. First and foremost, if you want an action movie, you can skip the first hour of the movie. Aside from the opening scene (which takes about 3 minutes), there’s not a hint of action anywhere. Instead, you’re treated to a no-nonsense replication of a high-school crush/relationship between John and a school photographer, which painfully draws on for way too long and is reinforced unnecessarily with corny lines like “When we love, it’s forever.”

Yay for Twilight infiltrating other action movies…

If you haven’t picked up on the second HUGE issue with the movie, it’s the writing. Not even Heath Ledger himself (bless his soul) could save this plot with the way it was presented for movie-goers. I’m not judging the book, because I’m sure it’s much better than the movie, but the plot and the writing here was borderline insulting as a viewer. Whenever main plot points have to be narrated, then something’s going wrong, and this happens at the beginning and the end of the movie by John. The one-liners here were horrible, but even all of that could’ve been forgiven if the characters were actually developed into personalities that made sense (aside from Sam, who was actually developed decently for comic relief purposes).

A perfect example of this is when John discovers Sarah’s private journal, and she tells him that it’s private. John all but ignores her and reads through it, while Sarah sat seemingly brain-dead less than a foot away without snatching the journal or making any type of movement whatsoever. In an ironic twist, the only character that develops slightly throughout the movie is the main antagonist, but due to poor writing and a weird spin on the word “final villain”, even this is negated by the end of the movie when it becomes evident that there’s truthfully nothing that sets him apart from other baddies that he’s commanding.

"You're number 6? Where's Number 5? They just skipped him in the story? Oh, ok."

So this alien race is trying to exterminate the Numbers, but they have no superpowers, and their only way of assault (Excluding the huge monsters that are show-stealers) is using alien “guns” that they actually have to reload. That’s original…

The Interesting: There are three things that keep this movie off the “Burn-After-Watching” list, and both of those happen towards the end of the movie. The action scene that finishes the movie is so well done it almost redeems all of the garbage you have to sift through to get to it (but even that’s bittersweet because the “final villain” has nothing that sets him apart from the others besides an incendiary round). There’s a Chimera sighting in this movie that’s nicely presented. The biggest reason however is Number 6, who’s a complete goon when it comes to fighting. Being able to disappear and reappear (I.E. Nightcrawler of X-Men) adds a complete different element to the fight scenes, and you’ll find yourself wanting to see her fight more as opposed to John.

Also…does anyone know what happened to Number 5? He or she was never mentioned in the movie, and it’s kind of annoying knowing what happens to 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. If the order of assassinations was such a big deal to these aliens you would think they’d allude to that…

Bottom Line: The action scenes (barely plural) here are epic, but there’s so many other factors that bog down the movie experience. The sappy love story, the corny writing, the semi-predictable ending, but most importantly, the lack of the one thing the movie advertises heavily in previews (ahem, action) all drain away the energy you may have watching this movie. It’s not a bad movie, entirely. It’s just not worth seeing until the sequel comes out. Even then, it’s only worth seeing for history purposes. I’d recommend skipping this one, or waiting for a DVD rental.

K1ngEljay.com Rating — > 2 / 5 < –