I Am Number Four

My first trailer experience with this movie left me a little curious: it starts out with the narrater telling us that the previous three of nine were killed, and he was Number Four. Now, after re-watching it, I thought the trailer ended with the words "I Am Number Four" and did not continue to show us Number Four doing some stunts and teasing us with seconds of film. Regardless, the film looked like another Jumper or Push, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just not my thing (perhaps something I should reconsider).

Months later I would have the opportunity to see this on an IMAX screen, which gets me excited already because this means the movie - and the special effects - will be in focus, making the extra few dollars admission worth it. In that department, I was not disappointed. But I'll get into that in a bit. The intro of the movie starts off the dark jungle, with the murder of a previous number by what looks like a giant alien bulldog. We then cut to the sweet life, Number Four, enjoying the what I believe was Key West but disaster strikes and his leg starts glowing. He's forced onto the road again, and that's all we get: there are creatures chasing The Numbers, and The Numbers are on the run.

So these people have been forced off their planet? These aliens want something from them? It's pretty unclear, and there are no answers. It's not a terrible thing, I guess. Instead of some epic montage at the beginning of the movie explaining who these two parties are, or even some dialogue sprinkled throughout, we cut right to the chase, right? Wrong. What we get is some teen soap opera, that wreaks of Twilight's influence. Not until halfway through, or even later on, do we get right down to the point (and more unanswered questions). I actually felt like I was watching the first seasons of Smallville; one scene was mirrored almost perfectly. In Smallville, Clark is in class, and accidentally uses his heat vision for the first time, setting the screen at the front of the room on fire. He rushes out and is all confused, puberty will do to a young male. Here, John's hands begin glowing uncontrollably, and he rushes out of class, confused again.

So what we get is a teen discovering his powers, which I found boring: if I wanted to see this I would re-watch Smallville, or even the original Superman, which was much more sweeping and relevant (note that nostalgia could be rewriting the truth here). But in retrospect, this movie delivers to the target audience, I'm just not in that target anymore. It was definitely a dream of mine to develop crazy-great powers and do spectacular things; fall in love with the ideal girl and defend nerds, all the while feeding off the fear of jocks and jerks alike. OK, perhaps not all those things, but you get the idea.

So the last half hour of the movie is this special effects extravaganza, that was really, truly impressive. Every laser blast lit up the screen and rumbled my seat. Action was fast but I wasn't losing track of what was going on. The characters were weighty and the explosions were really happening. I'm not sure how else to convey it to you, except to say it was fun. And in the end, that was how I felt: the movie was fun and simple. We don't get big back story - perhaps it helps to read the books - but perhaps we don't need any.