All posts tagged jj abrams

‘I Am Number Four’ is based on a popular teenage science-fiction book of the same name; written by author Pittacus Lore. Lore is actually the pen-name for disgraced writer James Frey, who infamously had a confrontation with Oprah Winfrey after it was revealed that he had lied about the truth in his popular “true” memoir: ‘A Million Little Pieces’.

Frey was subsequently dropped from his publisher and manager; and thus had to create the pen-name to hide behind. The book and the film of ‘I Am Number Four’ are somewhat complicated and confusing; but they basically follow the story of an alien named ‘Number Four’ – who is one of nine special aliens who have fled their home to hide out on Earth…Four conveniently looks like a human; and is thus played by teen heartthrob Alex Petyfer(‘StormBreaker’).

‘Four’ hides out in Ohio with his protector Henri (Played by Timothy Olyphant; ‘Catch And Release, Die Hard 4). The two of them live their life as fugitives: always on the run from a different race of aliens called the Mogadorians; these evil guys have, in true ‘Superman’ style – have destroyed the ‘Four’s’ home planet: and are now hunting down the special nine aliens one by one. The nine are special because once they turn of age they each develop special powers. The catch here; is that the nine have to be killed in sequence.

‘I Am Number Four’ opens with the death of ‘number three’ and thus our main man is next in line. None of the above is every shown to us; it is hammered into our skulls through painful exposition; scene after scene. There are so many scenes of characters explaining things out loud that it is often cringe worthy. Soon enough; the story gets moving:

You see; things get all mixed up when ‘Four’ falls in love. Its established that Henri and him constantly move from town to town; in the first act of the film they arrive at a town called Paradise (Yep), and  it is here he meets some interesting characters. First up is a dorky boy named Sam, whose introduction is complete with a ‘Spiderman’ rip off; where Four protects him from a bunch of bullies through the use of his superpowers. Cool thing about Sam is that his father is a conspiracy theorist – which leads to all sorts of painful exposition.

Secondly he meets the impossible-to-not-have-a-crush-on: Sarah Hart (played by ‘Glees’ Diana Argon) an indie-hipster cute girl who has a passion for photography- He falls for her and because of their love Four no longer wants to live life on the run. The Alien man with powers wants to settle down, but the evil alien race loom in close on their location; and all things soon turn to hell. The evil aliens are ridiculously cheesy – an uninspired rip off of the bad guys in 2009’s ‘Star Trek’ : bald, tattoos, bad teeth etc. It’s shameless actually.

Also in the mix of this is: Number Six (Teresa Palmer); a sexy and mysterious badass alien; who may or may not be trying to protect Four.

It’s all very ‘Superman’ and ‘Terminator’ and for the most part its crushingly standard. The film is directed by D.J Caruso; who may the enjoyable ‘Disturbia’ and the incredibly awful ‘Eagle Eye’. I couldn’t help but feel that the movie was like a really bad episode of ‘The X-Files’ , like a monster of the week special or something. Caruso; directs the movie with little passion and inspiration that the results are no more effective than a run of the mill straight-to-dvd film you might come across on the Sci-Fi Channel. Caruso hasn’t really proven to have a voice yet; and ‘Eagle Eye’ was setting him on the road to becoming quite the Hack director.

Now ‘I Am Number Four’ is no-where near the disaster that that movie was, but its still pretty bad. This property caused a major bidding war in Hollywood; with people like J.J Abrams, Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay all fighting over it. This is strange to me because the material itself is very, very average. Seemingly ripping off all of its elements from other films. Alas the rights ultimately went to Michael Bay, and the film ends up appearing as if it was designed to attract fans of the ‘Twilight Saga’ and to start a franchise. It seems as if it is skewing itself directly to that audience.

Skewing a movie to the ‘Twilight’ audience is a downright bad idea. Especially when ‘Twilight’ isn’t really considered to be a film series of any actual quality (to be fair; it does have an audience and the movies are made specifically for them – just not film fans and critics) I think ‘Twilight’ is utter garbage; but it has a place in this world; but it doesn’t really excuse other films that try to mimic its success by doing nothing but ripping it off.

The rip-off is not new in Hollywood. Formula and cliche sell big. Yes, It is a very cynical process to copy a successful movie and churn out the same thing over and over again- but its a business and as long as people keep paying for crap; then Hollywood will keep pumping out uninspired turds. Quality control barely even comes into the equation anymore, and cynical moves like that result in movies like ‘I Am Number Four’ , which in this case is a very formulaic picture. If it’s not stealing elements from ‘Superman’, ‘The Terminator’, ‘Star Trek’, ‘Spiderman’ or ‘The Matrix’, then it is cribbing the exact same pacing and beats of the first ‘Twilight’ flick.

There is seriously nothing original about ‘I Am Number Four’- and the worst thing about it is that it shamelessly rips off ‘Twilight’.

I’ll just digress for a moment and break down the first ‘Twilight’ movie: that film begins with a young girl Bella; coming to a school she is unfamiliar with; she makes few friends, but soon falls in with a strange group who turn out to be Vampires. For almost the entire duration Bella swoons for Edward Cullen and the two go back and forth; it is only at the beginning of the third act that any tension arises and an actual plot begins. The third act is action filled, and then it ends with a cliffhanger of sorts.

‘I Am Number Four’ is almost the exact same formula; except perhaps it is even more cynical than ‘Twilight’. Caruso, producer Michael Bay, and screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Miller take almost the exact same pacing and beats and basically reverse the situation: it is as they re-imagined the first ‘Twilight’ movie to have taken place through the perspective of Edward Cullen: i.e. the main character played byRobert Pattinson.

Pattinson stand-in: Alex Petyfer plays the Cullen role here; he isn’t called to do much but pose for the ladies – but he can actually act as well. ‘I Am Number Four’ opens with him coming to a school he is unfamiliar with, he makes few friends, but soon meets a girl and makes her fall in with a strange group that turn out to be Aliens. For almost the entire duration Number Four swoons for Sarah and the two go back and forth; it is only at the beginning of the third act that the villains arrive and bring some tension; and an actual plot begins. The third act is action filled, and then it ends with a cliffhanger of sorts.

I have not read the book by Pittacus Lore/James Frey; so I cannot attest to how much of the movie comes from the novel; but the film as it was, came across as a very cynical attempt to capitalize on the success of ‘Twilight’.

Now none of this would have been an issue if ‘I Am Number Four’ just wasn’t so painfully boring and lazily written. Some much of it consists of bland-exposition and bad dialogue – it is surprisingly un-cinematic (until the third act) too much time is spent telling an audience what is going on as opposed to showing us.

Unlike that other franchise, this movie is actually well acted -even Petyfer; who I had unfairly dismissed as a “pretty-boy” was fine. Diana Argon is beautiful and charismatic, I always think Teresa Palmer is great and she needed more screen-time in this film. Timothy Olyphant; is his usual weird,wacky; oddly-creepy self; and relative newcomer Callan McAuliffe was great as Sam; the friend.

It is definitely not the casting that lets the movie down; nor is it any of the technical aspects. The film was shot on a comparatively cheaper hollywood budget of $50-60 million; so its easy to excuse some of the film’s underproduced elements – most of the money was clearly spent of CGI; and since most of that doesn’t even occur until the finale it is understandable for the rest of it to look undervalued.

The cinematography is by Guillermo Navarro (who has shot films for Robert Rodriguez, Guillermo Del Toro, Quentin Tarantino, and Jon Favreau) he does an acceptable job here; providing images that are worth looking at.

Director D.J Caruso fairs better here than he has in earlier projects; helping to get some decent performances out of his young and relatively inexperienced actors – and staging some great action sequences- but its all very throwaway – there doesn’t seem to be much passion involved; and thus the whole production reeks of Studio involvement. Caruso is talented for sure and he is slated to direct an upcoming film adaptation of the comic book ‘Y: The Last Man’ – I am a huge fan of that series and If you haven’t read it then I highly, highly recommend you do. However, films like ‘Eagle Eye’ and this one, don’t exactly fill one with much hope.

Ultimately there are so many elements that are half-decent, and even elements to like: in ‘I Am Number Four’ but it is a shame that a lot of it went to waste on a hackneyed, uninspired and very-average screenplay. It’s the screenplay that lets down every single other aspect and at the end of the day we are left with a project that seems to exist purely to create a profit and to start a franchise.

It’s all so cynical, and this taints all the good work done. ‘I Am Number Four’ will most likely work for the ‘Twilight’ crowd (because they seem to not care much about quality – as long as it ticks their boxes) – but anybody else should probably give this one a miss.

4 out of 10.