I Am Number Four Image ((BETTER))
The following day, John and Number Six unite their blue rocks and discover the location of the other four surviving Garde. John lets Sam come with them in hopes of finding Sam's father. They set off to find the others so they can protect Earth from the Mogadorians, leaving Sarah and a repentant Mark, who lies to his father about John's whereabouts. Mark also returns a magic box left to John by his Dad, that was in police evidence. John thanks Mark and promises Sarah that he will come back to her. While they share a goodbye kiss, Mark is visibly resigned to their relationship. John, Sam, Bernie and Number Six drive off, vowing to protect Earth.
I Am Number Four image
The film opened at number two in the United States and Canada with a gross of $19,449,893. In its second weekend, it dropped 43.4%, earning $11,016,126.[6] The only other market where it has grossed over $10 million is China. It began in third place with $3.4 million, but had an increase of 91% in its second week, topping the box office with $6.4 million. In its third week, it decreased by 21% to $5.0 million. As of March 27, 2011, it has grossed $17,328,244.[50]
The story of a cute alien finding both love and his superpowers while on the run from not-so-cute aliens -- that's probably the tagline that sold the movie rights. Here are a few more details: John is one of 18 to leave the planet Lorien before the evil Mogadorians completely destroyed it. The survivors made it to Earth and spilt up -- nine kids with nine mentors who must stay on the run from Mogadorians on Earth who want to finish the job. Thanks to a charm, each kid has a number and can only be destroyed in order. Three are dead as Number Four heads to Paradise, Ohio with his mentor Henri, who is waiting for John to develop his superpowers so he can begin to train him. Henri is thrilled when John's hands start to mysteriously glow, but John's training gets in the way of his romance with Sarah and friendship with Sam, who has an odd fascination with aliens already. Then, one of Sam's conspiracy newsletters -- printed only hours away -- mentions the Mogadorians. Are the evil aliens already hot on their trail?
In anticipation of its February 18th release, DreamWorks has released over twenty new hi-res images from their film I Am Number Four. Starring Alex Pettyfer, Dianna Agron, Teresa Palmer, and Timothy Olyphant, the film follows John (Pettyfer), a teen who is constantly on the run from people trying to kill him as a result of his mysterious abilities. To check out the new images, hit the jump. Click here to catch up on all of our previous I Am Number Four coverage.
Along for the ride is dweeby underclassman Sam (Callan McAuliffe) because, well, what teen series doesn't need a nerd? Sam settles in quickly as Number Four's number two, a sidekick whose chief function seems to be to smile and mutter "Coooool" when he's allowed to use alien hardware.
The following day, Number Six unites John's and Sam's blue rocks and discover the location of the other four surviving Garde. John allows Sam to come with them with the hope of one day finding Sam's father. They set off to find the others so they can all protect Earth from the Mogadorians. They leave behind Sarah and a repentant Mark, who lies to his father about John's whereabouts and returns the box left to John by his dad that was in police evidence. Before leaving, John promises to return to Paradise one day and kisses Sarah one last time. Just before getting into Sam's truck, Bernie Kosar, with a visibly injured paw, limps up to John. Besides his paw, he seems to be alright.
Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.
The books follows the story of two Lorics, from the planet of Lorien, living with us, humans. We have John and Henri. Henri serving as the guardian (or Cepan in the Loric language) of John. In their world every new born is assigned a Cepan to guide the child in learning the things around them especially their powers. John and Henri have been here on Earth for ten years now and always switching places for they are trying to avoid a group of other aliens, the Mogadorians, who are pursuing them. John and Henri were sent to the earth along with other eight children and eight Cepans when the Mogadorians invaded their planet in the hope that one day hey will come back on their planet and start again. Upon reaching the earth they had to move separate ways for it to be harder for them to be tracked in cases the Mogadorians come. Each child was tagged with number from one to nine and there was a spell that was cast that the Mogadorians do need to kill them in order for it to be successful. John was tagged as the #4. The Mogadorians eventually followed them hereon Earth. Number one, two and three were already killed. And John is next.
While plot details were vague or simply nonexistent, the film is essentially about Number Four, who is one of nine survivors from the planet Lorien. The nine have superpowers and were sent to protect Earth from the evil Mogadorians, who are killing them number by number.
The trio decide to head back to Paradise, Ohio, after learning that Sam's father had connections to the Gardè when they arrived on Earth. Sneaking into Sam's mother's backyard, they find a sort of well covered with a lid displaying Loric numbers. They open the well by entering in Sam's birthday, and encounter a room with a giant skeleton, some kind of map, plans, and a white tablet. They take the tablet and leave the well, but not before waking up Sam's mother, to whom Sam bids goodbye. In the ruckus that ensues, John and Sam are separated from Six and Bernie Kosar.
Number Four is an alien from the planet Lorien, which was destroyed by another evil race, the Mogadorians, whose sole purpose is planetary extinction. Number Four wasn't the sole survivor, as there were eight others, along with their guardians, who escaped the planet's destruction. These nine remnants are destined to use their inner powers to defeat these evil intergalactic terrors, but they must survive long enough to master them. The aliens seek out the survivors, one by one, in order of their number. Numbers one through three have been killed.
Tropes specific to the film: Adaptational Badass: Number Six trades in invisibility from the book for teleportation in the movie.
Adaptational Villainy: the conspiracy theorist publishers/bloggers who Run They Walk Among only collaborate with the Mogs out of fear of death in the book but do so out of hope for material gain in the movie. which makes their avoiding the What Happened to the Mouse? fate of their book counterparts and instead suffering You Have Failed Me somewhat karmic.
All There in the Script: In the script, Sarah's surname was spelt 'Harte', and Mark's misspelt 'Jayne' in directions, but correctly as 'James' in dialogue.
Big Damn Heroes: Number Six.
Bloodless Carnage: Instead of gore, the alien characters that die turn to dust and explode in a shower of ash. Averted by the Gory Discretion Shot of the janitor, where you see the automatic mop sweeping his blood off the floor.
Chekhov's Skill: Those Deflector Shields ain't just for lookin' cool.
Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The good guys use blue bullets/power/sword. The bad guys use red bullets.
Composite Character: Sarah's younger brother, of her two older brothers and her younger sister from the book.
Deflector Shields: Number Six.
Disney Death: The supposed tragic death of the dog turned out to be this. This shouldn't have surprised anyone; when we last see the dog during the climax, it's wounded, but it doesn't turn to dust like all other aliens that die in the movie. Therefore, it's obvious even before it pops up again in the last scene that it survived.
Distracted by the Sexy: Sam upon seeing Six. In fact, the distraction works to break him out of a panic attack.
Everything Fades: All aliens (conveniently) leave no corpses. This is probably a substitute for Henri's funeral pyre from the novel.
Everything Is Online: Actually played fairly realistically Implied to be one of the things that keep Number Four from staying in one place is that whenever something big happens to him that exposes the fact that he's an alien is people record him: in the film, a clip got sent to a conspiracy site.
Henri also found a lot of information about Sam's dad.
Sarah has a photo blog, and dedicates effectively a tag to pictures of John. They immediately get taken down by Henri, and even she doesn't seem to notice the lack.
Evil Is Hammy: Kevin Durand had some fun playing the Mog leader.
Expy: Every Mogadorian (in the film) looks like a gill-nosed Lord Voldemort.
Faux Affably Evil / Laughably Evil: The leader of the Mogs delivers some of the funniest lines in the film.
Flash Step: Number Six, particularly in the movie where she can teleport.
For the Evulz: The Mog leader scares the crap out of a little boy in an adjacent car for no other reason than this.
Gory Discretion Shot: The deaths of the "They Walk Among Us" guys and the janitor all happen off-screen as well as the death of Number Three's guardian, who's yanked through the door of their hut by one of the lizard glider creatures.
It's Personal: Number Four points to the red-eyed Mogadorian and tells Number Six: "He killed Henri, I want him."
Jerkass: The girl in the beginning that freaks out when Four's tattoos start glowing. Made especially egregious as she was about to sleep with him. Instead, she swims off, leaving him alone (and in apparent trauma) while shouting that Four is "a freak." That's a quality lady right there.
Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Realistically averted: a shotgun is more likely to knock the Made of Iron bad guys on their ass, and flinging large heavy items at them will probably slow them down, but it takes turning their own overpowered BFGs on them to actually take them out.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Actually more of Deflector Shields, until Number Six uses it along with her own body in the climax to protect Number Four and herself.
Made of Iron: The only things that seem to be able to kill a Mog is a Mogadorian blade or one of their weapons. Somewhat justified. The Lorien weapons we see amount to a slightly over-sized dagger, and a slightly over-sized energy pistol. The Mog weapons we see are a nastily serrated 3-foot sword and various high-energy rifles that either pump out ridiculous amounts of machine-gun-style rounds or single massive bursts. About what you'd expect from an entire race dedicated to wiping out other races for no apparent reason other than being sadistic.
The Mogadorians don't destroy planets just because it is said that they ruined their own planet and need resources to survive.
Sarah's ex has some elements of this as well. He's launched into a second floor window hard enough to crack the glass with his face, then falls back to the ground, and yet he's completely uninjured at the conclusion of the movie. He is a Winchester after-all.
Missing Mom: Number Four's parents are both dead, but he mentions to Sarah's family that his parents are just separated. Also, Sam has lived with his dad and stepdad but no mom is ever mentioned.
Mundane Utility: Number Four's glowing hands. Aside from using them to recharge Six's powers, he uses them mainly as flashlights.
My Nayme Is: The film avoids this issue entirely. Whilst Henri's name is spelt with an 'i', it is pronounced like the English "Henry," and he has no unusual accent whatsoever. This may have been done to avoid What the Hell Is That Accent?, or to cut down on the info-dumpage in the prologue.
Oblivious Janitor Cut
Oh, Crap!: Number Six gets two of these: one when an energy grenade gets thrown at her, and the second is when she realizes Four is about to give the leader Mog a Pineapple Surprise (in slow motion, no less). Sam also has one when he sees the lizard creatures jumping out of the truck, followed immediately by another one when Bernie Kosar shape-shifts.
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Sam (portrayed by British-Australian actor Callan McAuliffe) is a repeat offender of this trope, but most notably in the garage scene. British actor Alex Pettyfer slips up as well, but much less frequently. In the DVD bonus feature about Number 6, Australian Teresa Palmer claims that one of the things she liked about the role was being able to use her own dialect.
At least with the latter, it can be assumed that he either has a somewhat odd combination accent due to extensive travel or that he's faking an accent to fit in better with the Americans. The same for Palmer's Number Six.
Out of the Inferno: Number Six after blowing up Number Four's old house. Justified in that Number Six can shield herself from fire.
Pineapple Surprise: Number Four kills the Mogadorian leader by using his powers to set off all of the leader's bullets while they're still strapped to his chest.
Reduced to Dust: Done in the film version with all alien people and creatures, presumably to not leave lots of dead bodies lying everywhere, especially with an expanded audience including younger people.
Sequel Hook: The movie end with Number Four and Six searching for Numbers 5-7-8-9 and Sam's dad. We also never saw what's in that box.
Surprisingly Sudden Death: In the beginning of the film.
Unflinching Walk - Number Six after setting fire to Number Four's old house to such a degree she walks in the explosion.
Unwilling Suspension: Henri.
Villains Out Shopping: The Mogs keep their secret weapons sated with supermarket turkeys.
You Are Number 6: Played with. It's averted in that the numbers are not actually used for names, but as target designations. However, it's deliberately invoked in Number Six's case, who identifies herself as "Number Six" (except one snarky comment to Sam that her name is "Jane Doe") and refers to John only by his number.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The two conspiracy theorists, one of whom is forced to swallow what looked like a miniature version of a Sentinel Sphere from Phantasm.
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