Movie Review: I Am Number Four

I did watch the recently released movie “I am Number Four” and this post is a quick review of the same.

When I initially saw the trailer, it didn’t give much clue about the movie-trailer just said that 9 people from other planet have landed in earth and are being hunted down, three of them are dead and fourth one is the next target.

Few other reviews I read before watching I am Number Four, gave some idea as to what to expect and I went to theatre with right expectations.

Movie is short and precise, just about 1 hour, 40 minutes. Sticks to its well defined story line, which goes something like this:

Story backdrop: About nine people from another planet named Lorien have landed in Earth as they had to flee from their home planet. The bad guys from their home planet are hunting these nine people down, one after another, in a sequence. The three people before him are recently located and killed at various places all around planet earth and now their next target is Number 4, John Smith, played by Alex Pettyfer. The movie goes on to illustrate how John attempts to save himself from being identified and how in the climax faces the bad guys and wins.

A fairly predictable story line, with a bit of teenage love thrown in (to complicate the matters or may be to interest those part of audience who’re not interested much in Sci-Fi actions). John has to keep changing his hideouts, keep a low profile (which becomes difficult due to some rouge guys in school and his love affairs). He has some superpowers with which he can move big things without touching them, fly around etc. These super powers allow him to do lot of stunts to entertain audience, in the pretext of protecting himself from bad people. Audience also get to see some colour coded fire power in climax.

Few other points:

• Bad guys in the movie (Mogs?) are unnecessarily shown in ugly faces-not sure if that was necessary. If both John Smith and his enemies are from same planet, either both of them should be ugly or both should be normal-right?
• The puppy, which converts itself into giant animal and fights enemies, got lot of applause from audience.
• The role of chameleon which crept into the vehicle during initial scenes, is not clear- was it a spy or did it convert itself into the puppy?
• A mystery girl (Teresa Palmer) appeared in couple of frames in first half and only towards the end her identity gets revealed-she’s also from Lorien, Number 6. If John and one more person (No.5) are killed, next will be her turn, so she’s also tracing John and protects him. This lady and her firepower gets charged by touch (when John Smith hits/pushes her hard or something). Her Ducati bike was nice.
• What the bad guys were carrying in the truck was not clear. Only in climax it was revealed, when the bad guys unleashed the two dinosaur looking animals on John and team
• These alien creatures turn into sand once killed.. No cost of burial or cremation :)

In the end, two pieces of stones, added together,destroy all bad things. Aliens (No 4 and No 6) go back, along with Sam (they were seen driving away, not sure where did they go. No UFO was shown) (Sam’s dad was abducted by bad guys for knowing too much about them )while Sarah (Diana Agron) who was Number Four John Smith’s original love interest, returns to her ex.

If you have an idea of the story, then movie can get boring at times due to its plain vanilla nature that is highly predictable. If you enjoy Sci-Fi/Alien concepts it might keep you excited. Climax is good for those who seek action. Wondering if the sequels will be named "I am Number 6" "I am number 7" and so on..

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