I Am Number Four

I didn't watch this thing when it was out in theaters because it looked like your typical angsty teen sci-fi drama, and I already had my fill of those from TV. But somebody lent me their Blu-ray of this recently and it turned out better than I predicted it would be. I was unfamiliar with most of the cast, which probably helped more than anything, since a lot of young actors only have a few roles defining them. I had never heard of the lead guy before, but that made sense since I heard an English accent slip through some of his lines. Timothy Olyphant was in it, and I was really only familiar with him from his stuff in The Girl Next Door and Die Hard III. Dianna Agron, well... I stopped watching Glee long enough that I was only thinking about it during half of her scenes. She didn't really do anything here that contrasted with what I was already familiar with, but I suppose there's only so much you can do when you're playing the ex of a popular football player in high school... again.

Anyway, the movie was about a race of aliens that sent nine of their children to Earth when another race invaded them and subsequently wiped out all life on their planet. The "hunted" race all look like normal humans and might as well be, if you put aside their powers (called Legacies), which vary from short range teleportation, to fire retardation, to tractor beam-type thingies that shoot of their palms. We only see two of these people, though. The "hunter" race of aliens ruined the movie with every scene they were in, especially near the beginning, where the viewers were supposed to familiarize themselves with a sense of normalcy and empathize with the protagonist guy trying to be normal and hiding his alien heritage, etc. One scene, we see the guy starting a new school and making a new friend, then in the next scene we see these people. They look so ridiculous, cliched and out of place that I sort of frowned in my mind whenever they showed up on camera.

All the effects look great, though. I was so used to watching Smallville that I forgot dramas set around high school can have good CG stuff. There are scenes where the actors have to do stunts and choreographed attacks combined with their powers and they still end up looking pretty believable. It was nothing that reminded you that you were watching a movie, if you know what I mean. But what a lot of people seemed to dislike about this movie was that it left too many ends open. Like "If there were nine toddlers sent to Earth, why do we only see two of them?" The main character has a pet chimera that he just kind of... found early on in the movie. That's never explained, even though it's hinted at by one of the bit players that someone sent it to protect him. It was obviously because this was just "that" kind of movie, where minor details don't all get answered because sequels are going to eventually touch upon them. That tends to happen in series of books, and this is based off of a series of novels. There weren't any burning explanations needed to understand the story to me.

I always wanted to know what was special about the number "4".
Why not 6 or 1 or 5 or 3?

4 is more edgy.

Well, Alex Pettyfer is really, really good looking, so I guess that's why it took so much money, at least in the UK. Not planning to watch it, but casting him as a "loser kid" sounds like a dumb decision.

Also, how much explanation do you need to understand a plot?
They're not usually any hard to follow.

Also, Olyphant was in Die Hard 4.0 not III.

Ah, yes.

I enjoyed this movie, although I watched a pirated version of it so I couldn't get the full feeling of the movie. It is one of those highschool teenage dramas for the beginning bit but if you can get by that it gets good.

I also liked it. When mumber 6 did show up. Atleast I think she was number 6.