Books Made into Movies: I Am Number Four

Generally, I do not write a review of a movie based on a book unless I have already read the book, since that allows me to do an evaluation of the adaptation that has been done. With that said, in all honesty, I have not read I Am Number Four. I read all of four pages and knew that there was no way I was going to be able to read it all; it was just that awful.

The movie was as terrible as I expected. Why did I watch it if I knew I wouldn't like it? Well, the preview that they showed during the long episode of Glee (because of Dianna Agron) looked bad but fun. Unfortunately, I did not find the movie fun. It skittered between terrible and boring. The dialog in the film seems every bit as uninspired as what I encountered in my exceedingly brief foray into the novel. The characters, too, are flat and uninteresting (and mostly unattractive, with the exception of Dianna Agron). Whether these things were caused in part by bad acting or whether the screenplay was just so awful there was nothing the actors could do, I can't say.

We're totally in high school. Who says we're not?

One seriously irritating thing about this movie is that they wanted it to be really dark during the scenes taking place in dark spaces or at night. This is all authentic and all, but the reason filmmaker's rarely do this is because the audience can't see. When you're watching a movie, seeing what's going on is generally the point. Darkness can be used for dramatic effect, but a lot of the action scenes took place in the dark, except for John's shiny hands.

Speaking of the shiny hands, what the heck is that for a power? I mean, super strength and speed is definitely cool. But for his super special legacy, he gets flashlights for hands? They're high wattage, but still. The Australian chick got some sort of super sword/gun/weapon thing that completely owns the enemy with a little slice in addition to being flame retardant and he has shiny circles on his hands?

My Super Hero Name will be...hmm...I know!
The Torch, you know, cause in Britain flashlights are called torches?
Oh that's taken? Tarnation. Alright, Mr. Flashlight it is then.
Theme song: "This little light o' mine. I'm gonna let it shine."

The enemy aliens, Mogs, are strong and creepy looking, true, but I had trouble taking them seriously. They speak with each other in these grunts and wear stupid cloaks and generally seem to be moving very slowly. I don't know. They're just not awesome bad guys. Or, maybe, the reason I did not find them intimidating was that in one of their first appearances, a Mog menacingly buys like 37 turkeys from the grocery store. This is never explained. I suppose I am to assume that he is going to do something nefarious with the turkeys, but there might just have been a good sale on or maybe Mogs just really freakin' love turkey. Grocery shopping is not scary, so maybe not a good way to introduce the villain, kay?

Choosy aliens out for domination of the human
race choose Butterball.

Altogether a lackluster and lame film. That's my opinion anyway. One of my coworker's was rhapsodizing about how much fun it was, so you can take my reaction or leave it.