My first topic revolves around the recent movie, I Am Number Four. This is going to be more of a review than a rant, seeing how it's hard to get really in-depth without either spoiling the book, the movie, and in very rare cases, both at the same time.
When I first saw the preview months ago I immediately got the book and gave it a read. In short, I absolutely LOVED it. It had interesting characters that were easy to relate to, fun action scenes, and a slowly unraveling mythology of a world long gone that almost makes you believe such a thing could have happened at one time. It was so brilliantly handled. From the overall plot to the development and evolution of the characters. Even when they made a mistake you were rooting for them to see the wrong in their ways and fix it. You could relate to Number Four's dislike of always having to run and give up any chance for a normal life to protect a world he never even knew. But he didn't run from it. For better or worse he understood the importance of it all.
Now my question is why would you take such a great piece of storytelling and make it into a film if you're going to ignore all the things that made it great? Not even ignore, but CHANGE? Number Four, or John, in the movie is a selfish rebellious teen who wants nothing to do with his destiny, but somehow in the end still fights for it. They take his guardian, Henri, and turn him into an arrogant control freak that almost makes you not feel guilty about John rebelling, which I HATED. Even the love interest, Sarah, was so two-dimensional that you can't really tell where she's coming from even thought somehow John does.
The plot is so rushed, and many key moments of the book, while in the movie, are so watered down and minimized that they lose all desired effect. About 2/3 of the way through the movie I still wasn't rooting for John, because his character simply wasn't developed enough. It wasn't handled with enough care to create a hero figure that you truly wanted to see conquer, because he spent most of the movie ignoring what he's been told all along. None of the characters were developed well, and some not at all. The main love interest side-plot was so underdeveloped that by the time it happened I was like "What the hell? What just happened?" It simply wasn't believable. There are many moments like that, one in particular in the very end that I would have just walked out of the movie on if there wasn't two minutes left.
The film was just poorly handled, with no regard for the source material whatsoever. People walking in with no knowledge of the book won't even get certain things, like the small golden chest that Henri keeps hidden in the grandfather clock. A chest that has no purpose anyomore, because they decided they could handle things differently, but guess what? Now the chest is obselete. They missed their chance.
I'm so beyond pissed at this movie for the mere fact that it's obvious the people adapting the book didn't really "get it." If you're not going to respect the source material and handle it properly then simply stay away from it. And that concludes my review/rant of I Am Number Four.
One reason I hardly ever read a book before seeing the movie is that the movie is *never* as good as the book. That's a given. That said, I will say that (not having read the book myself) that there were a few holes in the plot. I still can't understand how the evil jock football player does a 180 degree change by the end...something got left out. But, hey, I sort of liked the film anyway. And now, if I decided to read the book, I can say: Oh, yeah, now I get it!
ReplyDeleteYeah that's the thing I was talking about that almost made me walk out. It wasn't explained at all and came out of nowhere. Even the villains, the Mogadorians, while they looked cool and had cool weapons (that torture saw blade ball was awesome), they were ruined by opening their mouths.
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