I Am Number Four: Movie Review.

Synopsis: Three are dead. He is Number Four. D.J. Caruso ("Eagle Eye," "Disturbia") helms an action-packed thriller about an extraordinary young man, John Smith (Alex Pettyfer), who is a fugitive on the run from ruthless enemies sent to destroy him. Changing his identity, moving from town to town with his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant), John is always the new kid with no ties to his past. In the small Ohio town he now calls home, John encounters unexpected, life-changing events-his first love (Dianna Agron), powerful new abilities and a connection to the others who share his incredible destiny. John (Alex Pettyfer) is an extraordinary young man, masking his true identity and passing as a typical student to elude a deadly enemy seeking to destroy him. Three like him have already been killed...he is Number Four. Based on the book by Pittacus Lore.-- (C)Dreamworks

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 49 min.

In Theaters: Feb 18, 2011 Wide

Distributor:DreamWorks Studios

Directed By: D.J. Caruso

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Last night I had the opportunity to get to go and see I Am Number 4 in an advance screening. I know there is a bunch of "controversy" surrounding this movie and it's book , but I wanted to see it, so I did. And it was free. Free movies are the best. (and I have my own opinions on James Frey and where I stand does not prevent me from reading the book or seeing the movie)

The screening was at the sister theatre of the movie theatre that I used to work for. All you do is watch the movie and then as you are walking out tell them what you thought of the movie. The crowd is generally moving pretty fast out the door though so you can usually only get one word out to the people jotting down notes (so they did not ask me to write a review. This is purely because I wanted to)

One of my best friends that came with me told them she thought it was awesome. I said it was great, a lot better than I was expecting. I don't know if they actually heard everything I said because I was being pushing along, but I tried.

And what I said was true. The movie was pretty neat. I was expecting it to be really cheesy but it turned out to be very entertaining.

I was searching for a synopsis of the movie online and Rotten Tomatoes came up and I saw the average rating the movie had. Not a good one. So I decided to take a look at some reviews.

I watch movies the same way I read books. Usually going purely off how the movie or book is making me feel at that moment. I don't dissect scripts the same way I do not dissect writing styles.

I am what I like to call an "emotional reviewer".

So, for me, I could not take many of the Rotten Tomatoes reviews seriously because most of the ones I saw were talking about the CGI and how parts of the script were weak, blah blah blah. They lost me at all the technical talk, because that's not how I view things.

So here is what I thought from the way I saw the movie.

To be honest, the beginning of the movie made me laugh. It actually reminded me of Jaws.

Boy is at beach party, chick invites him for a late night swim, they are out in the water talking, I start going "buh dum, buh dum", and lo and behold something actually does happen that pulls him under the water. I am giggling even now. But, alas, it was not a shark. 

Ahem, sorry...back to the actual happenings of the movie.

I had not seen Alex Pettyfer (or Alex Prettyface as my friends call him) in anything before. And while everyone is either telling him to be Peeta or Jace I just wanted to see if he had any skills other than looking amazing. And, much to my surprise, he is pretty good. With a couple more movies I think he could be on his way to being great. He was brooding, but then other times just happy and normal.

The love story was a little cheesy. You could see it coming from a million miles away.

I had not seen Dianna Agron act either and she wasn't bad. Just sometimes not very believable. I would like more of a reaction from people when they find out the person they are seeing is an alien.

And I have to throw a little shout out to Timothy Olyphant, since he is one of my favorite actors and he was pretty cool in this movie.

The movie was action packed with a touch of romance and teenage angst. And it was refreshing to sit through a movie that didn't have characters having sex every chance they got. When bad guy aliens are after you, it would be very hard to find time for sex. There also was not a whole lot of language, which was nice.

Number 6 was a total badass. Though Dianna Agron gets to kiss Alex P. and most every girl I know wants to be here now, I would want to be Number 6. She is just too cool. And gets to blow a lot of stuff up. Blowing stuff up always trumps a guy in my book.

I Am Number 4 was a fun and family friendly movie that I will probably go and see again. I also cannot wait to see (hopefully they make it into a movie) The Power of Six to find out where this story is going to go.

I think I may just have to go get the book(s) and read them now.