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The Meat
Oh lordie, where to
begin. I guess I'll wade through the mediocre muddle of the story-line first,
before I reveal the perplexing paradox (awesome alliteration so far, no?) whereby
the book and movie each manage to fail in very different, in fact
medium-specific ways.
So, the plot, as it
was no doubt intended to be understood: yet another superhero story...but with
a twist! This one's unique (supporters might rant) because it's about aliens,
and plus there's a mystical charm on the nine Loric (the good aliens) superhero
survivors of the bad aliens' attack, whereby they can only be killed in order
of their number. Once they grow up and come into their various powers, the
reader/viewer can have no doubt they'll easily defeat the bad aliens, which
brings us to the first of, sadly, many colossal flaws to the story: since the
superhero survivors are evidently being scripted into a 'triumphing against impossible
odds' kind of story—or in other words, they're going to be friggin' amazing
once they get all their powers, since even halfway to full potency they're
pretty tough—how on earth did an entire planet of these heroes get trounced by
the bad aliens in the first place? I mean, there were millions of them, right?
And it's not like the bad aliens attacked with nukes or something—they attacked
with really big 'beasts'. I don't know about you, but how many superheroes with
powers like telekinesis and weather control (i.e. lightning and stuff, not
unlike Storm from the X-Men) would it really take to handle one giant beast?
And what is up with
the totally half-hearted environmental theme, anyway? Ages ago, apparently the
planet Lorien was too heavily exploited by its inhabitants for its resources,
which destroyed the balance of nature, so they 'evolved' and morphed into two
distinct classes, the planet-guarding Garde (that's the superheroes; I wonder
where that word came from) and Everyone Else (each Garde gets a totally mundane
person as, essentially, a chaperone/teacher). First off, how much would it suck to get born
into the crappy underclass of Ordinary Schmuck? But no, the narrative insists
that everything on Lorien was idyllic and wonderful, no conflict at all! Yeah,
right. If the Garde had any scrap of human nature in them, they'd immediately
set themselves up as overlords of everyone else, ruling as little feudal lords
over their individual domains, and anyone without powers would be a mere serf.
Here fanboys
(and/or fangirls?) of the series will probably leap to the attack, insisting
that I just don't understand how awesome the Loric are, that they live in
perfect harmony, they're not tainted by human selfishness, etc., and perhaps
that's true, but if so, they'd be so utterly unlike human beings that
meaningful interaction would be impossible, and yet the entire story is (another
Massive Problem) about Number Four, a.k.a. 'John Smith', struggling to find a
place for himself in small-town America—in high school, of course—and soon
falling in love (with an ex-cheerleader, ex-girlfriend of the primary human
antagonist and, inevitably, football quarterback Mark). And the ways John
reacts to jealousy, etc. are all too human. In other words, the author of this
series claims these aliens are way wiser and cooler than humans but the actual
portrayal of said aliens presents them as exactly the same as humans except for
the powers that come at or after puberty.
Sound familiar? Sure did to me: it's
like pretty much every other superhero story ever. An ordinary boy—it's almost always
a boy—hits puberty and gets extraordinary powers (cigar-smokers like Freud
might well claim all this stuff about superheroes is a mere metaphor for the awakening
of male sexual potency), so suddenly the tables are turned on his social
tormentors and he finds a niche for himself in the scholastic jungle of high
school, and also falls in requited love with a girl who loves him even after
she learns the truth. There are two main themes at work here: Revenge of the Nerd
(Spiderman beats up the bully, Harry Potter hexes Dudley, etc.) and Impossible
Love (superhuman man meets human woman and their
love will last for all time!, i.e. Edward and Bella, etc.). Both of these
plot-tracks are, needless to say, exceedingly well furrowed, with dozens of high-profile
stories utilizing each. I wish the author of the I Am Number Four series had
taken Robert Frost's message to heart: wouldn't it be nice if one of these days
we get a superhero story that takes the road less traveled by?
Some might object
that there are original elements to the story, like the protective charm
ensuring they can only be killed in order, or the nature of Loric society (see
above). And this is the Paradox: all the original ideas, up to and including
the good vs. bad aliens thing, and especially the 'kill us in order'
mumbo-jumbo, make no sense and are almost irrelevant to the main drama, which
is about a very human(-esque) boy's transition into adulthood via social acceptance
(he stands up to a bully and makes a friend) and success in romance (he gets
the girl). It's as though the author just wanted to do another version of this
Monomythic tale, but felt pressure to make it 'original' so tacked on some
nonsense about aliens and charms and whatever.
You've probably
guessed by now that I didn't exactly warm to the story. It wasn't badly written
per se—if anything, it was above average stylistically—it was simply a bad
story. What's fascinating to me, though, is how the movie adaptation
paradoxically failed (or so I strongly felt as I watched it) for different
reasons. The movie dispensed with a lot of the less plausible aspects of the
story (non-Garde Loric are basically totally defenseless in the book, but in
the movie they're 'warriors' and even have weird glowing scimitars) and
telescoped things down, making what I felt were significant improvements in the
story-line and in pacing (for example, a key character suffers a rather major
mishap earlier, which serves as the impetus for others to continue the fight).
Yet I liked the movie no better than the book. How is this possible?
.jpg) |
| "I'm a nerd, I swear! My hair's artfully out of place and everything!" |
Well, my instant and visceral dislike of the blonde,
cleft-chinned square-jawed hulk, a veritable ubermensch, selected to play the
role of John didn't help. What were the producers thinking? Superhero movies
are supposed to be cathartic for the ordinary viewers, offering the hope that you,
too, ordinary boy, might someday discover you have extraordinary powers, a
premise that's pretty much out the window if the 'ordinary' boy looks like a
golden god. It calls the Girl's intentions into question: it is no longer clear that the Girl has the emotional depth to fall in love with him because of his pure nerd heart, since he's exactly the kind of man-boy eye-candy a shallow cheerleader type might well shack up with too! Worse yet, everyone in the movie is gorgeous (even Sam, the token
nerd) and many are blonde—the Love Interest (whose name I have already
forgotten, like much of this forgettable tale), and Number Six as well. Did the
movie-makers somehow jump to the conclusion that the target audience for a
movie of this type is comprised entirely of blindingly attractive high school
jocks and cheerleaders? If so...fail.
 |
| Don't worry, Timmy boy--I'd be looking glum if I'd agreed to appear in this movie too! |
So while the book
paradoxically failed because of the very twists and unique elements that set it
apart from the tried-and-true superhero story, the movie improved on that bad original
story to focus on the core drama of the awakening superhero and his romance,
yet paradoxically failed anyway because they made everything and everyone too
pretty, too blonde, too boring. If you desperately want to watch a movie about
high school students who acquire superpowers, watch Chronicle—it's waaay
better, both as a movie and as a story (and as an added bonus, the main
character isn't pretty at all, but rather looks like a bona fide—even kind of
creepy—nerd!).
The Math
Book:
Baseline assessment: 5/10
Bonuses: +1 for leaving open the possibility in the reader's mind that John
Smith and the other characters might just be nondescript rather than
supermodels
Penalties: -1 for the ridiculous protective magic (whence the
tagline "Three are dead—I Am Number Four," but should have been
"Superhero Beats up Jock, Meets Ordinary Girl—Mad Chemistry"), -1 for
all the other stupid alien stuff
Nerd coefficient: 4/10 (This book is Number Four. I wanted to give it and the movie a 3, but how could I, given the title?)
Movie:
Baseline assessment: 4/10
Bonuses: +1 for simplifying the alien stuff and downplaying
the magical protection, etc. to focus on the human drama
Penalties: -1 for having everyone be so friggin' beautiful
and un-nerdlike
Nerd coefficient: 4/10 (Same score, radically different
reasons)
[These scores aren't so hot, but they're probably not as low
as you think: see here
for more info]
