SPOILER ALERT! I’m making it the first thing you see; I will be discussing details that might give away parts of the film and movie if you haven’t seen it yet; you might want to stop reading now. You have been warned!
As I mentioned in the book review for I am Number Four, I had watched the movie when it first came out in 2011. With it being so long ago, I couldn’t for the best of me, remember anything about it, in order to compare with the book as I read it. So I did what I promised and re-watched it, and boy! So much better than my memories had attempted to recall, and so much better than the book!
The pros were so overwhelming that I can forgive the few cons that came up. I’ll go in chronological order. One of my biggest complaints from the book was that there were many plot points that were too convenient. They fixed this in all the parts that I felt were the problem. John’s legacies develop way sooner than in the book, and it makes all the difference in his character development. The need to keep himself and Henri safe becomes all that more important. It adds to the urgency. They skipped over all the training, but honestly, how many times do we have to see a hero training montage?
Another addition that I really appreciated was the placement of Six throughout the movie instead of leaving her for the final battle like with what happened in the book. By having Number Six looking for Number Four, by showing her searching and tracking them down, her purpose makes more sense and becomes more believable when she arrives in time for the battle later in the film. Compared to in the book where she simply shows up when they needed help the most, once again too convenient.
My other biggest complaint from the book was that Henri’s death was so late in relation to the story line. He was collateral damage during the final battle, which made me feel like it was the only loss that John had to face, and with the stakes so high from the start, it felt like it wasn’t enough to teach him that lesson. In the film, Henri dies shortly after being rescued when he was kidnapped by the authors of “They Walk Among Us”, the UFO magazine. By him dying at this point, John is given a moment to grieve and collect a new perspective of what is at stake beyond his own selfish desires of a normal life. People that he cared about were in danger, and they would die just like Henri if he didn’t do something to stop the Mogadorians. It helped his character development dramatically.
With the film’s fast pace added to the formula, everything was just 100 times better. If the book would have been set up the same way, it would have been an easy 5 out of 5.
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