I Am Number Four
I Am Number Four, by Pittacus Lore. Rant begins in 3...2...
I Am Number Four was more readable than I expected, though I should qualify that note of adulation by saying that my expectations were pretty much entirely built on the cover blurb by Michael Bay.
It’s readable enough that you might call it a novel, were you feeling charitable, but that’s really a bit of an overstatement. I Am Number Four is a media-savvy tie-in project for an upcoming Alex Pettyfer film. It frequently reads like either a film pitch by a studio exec or a detailed description of what made this scene cool by an excited fan. I don’t know who it is writing under the in-universe pseudonym Pittacus Lore, but I suspect that he, she or they emerged from the film industry unsullied by experience with other media.
Okay, I’m being harsh. I said the thing was readable, and for the first couple hundred pages it was. At first it was even kind of fun. But the pages flip by and the problems start to grate and it becomes apparent that no, there will be no further character development, and I got fed up.
And the thing is, I bet the film will be pretty decent. The story is about a teenaged alien, who is really more like X-Man from a planet with shapeshifting pets (because the shapeshifting animals, superior technology, magic, and the occasional weirdly colored plant are pretty much the only things that seem to distinguish the planet Lorian from Earth). He is Number Four out of nine of these superpowered aliens who were sent away from their home planet in the midst of its destruction. They are being hunted by their planet destroying nemeses, though because of a magical protection charm, they can only be killed in order. Number Four, who goes for the most of the book by the name John, has been on the run his whole life with his non-superpowered mentor, waiting for the powers that will allow him to fight back to finally emerge. The book begins with the death of Number Three, leaving Four next in line.
Here’s the problem: there is a lot of batshittery in you can get away with in an action flick that you just can’t in a novel. (I don’t know anything about filmmaking, but the reverse is probably true, too.) For example, the Rule of Cool. The Rule of Cool requires that the movie do whatever will look coolest on screen, regardless of narrative purpose or plausibility. And you know what? I watched Iron Man II twice, basically so I could replay the fight scene with Scarlett Johanssen doing back flips over minionly heads about a bajillion times. I love movies with ridiculous duels on ridiculous moving surfaces and villains who never see the hero clinging beneath the windowsill and bombs that can only be stopped when there are less than three seconds on the timer. The Rule of Cool works. Sometimes.
In I Am Number Four, the question “what will look cool on screen” seems to have factored heavily into deciding what would happen next, and the usual answer is “bigger monsters and some mind powers and maybe an explosion.” But the fact is, the action scenes are just not good enough to get away with it. Writing a good action scene is an alchemical art I know not of, I just know it’s difficult and it’s different from filming one. In Number Four, the action sequences manage to be both visually confusing and emotionally removed, and arithmetic formula which equals boring.
Meanwhile, in the category of other things we might be able to ignore with enough popcorn and CGI, the world-building is cursory at best, and there is an extraordinary amount of explanation by hand-waving or the addition of the adjective ‘Loric.’ Small town high school life is basically described as Grease with cell phones and less hallucinogenic hair-dye. The dialogue ranges from bland to cheesy to occasionally ridiculous, with a couple side trips into are-you-actually-quoting-nineties-pop-now?
And then there are the characters, most of whom are, again, just bland. Two things stuck out enough to make my eyebrows twitch: first, I am utterly fed up with characters who are described, being aliens or clones or whatever it is this week, as being super smart, but usually act really dumb.
And second, what is Sarah the Obligatory Love Interest even doing here? You know, the pretty blonde one who used to be a cheerleader and date asinine football players, but has since seen the error in her ways and now devotes her time to volunteering in animal shelters and cooking and dating slightly goofy younger students? The one who is the most gorgeous girl in school despite never wearing make up because that would be, like, superficial or something? The one who exists primarily to get stuck in a burning building and then wave a teary goodbye to Our Hero while promising that she will Always Wait For Him? Run, Sarah, run! Flee to a book where you won’t be treated as a necessary plot development!
I Am Number Four was more readable than I expected, though I should qualify that note of adulation by saying that my expectations were pretty much entirely built on the cover blurb by Michael Bay.
It’s readable enough that you might call it a novel, were you feeling charitable, but that’s really a bit of an overstatement. I Am Number Four is a media-savvy tie-in project for an upcoming Alex Pettyfer film. It frequently reads like either a film pitch by a studio exec or a detailed description of what made this scene cool by an excited fan. I don’t know who it is writing under the in-universe pseudonym Pittacus Lore, but I suspect that he, she or they emerged from the film industry unsullied by experience with other media.
Okay, I’m being harsh. I said the thing was readable, and for the first couple hundred pages it was. At first it was even kind of fun. But the pages flip by and the problems start to grate and it becomes apparent that no, there will be no further character development, and I got fed up.
And the thing is, I bet the film will be pretty decent. The story is about a teenaged alien, who is really more like X-Man from a planet with shapeshifting pets (because the shapeshifting animals, superior technology, magic, and the occasional weirdly colored plant are pretty much the only things that seem to distinguish the planet Lorian from Earth). He is Number Four out of nine of these superpowered aliens who were sent away from their home planet in the midst of its destruction. They are being hunted by their planet destroying nemeses, though because of a magical protection charm, they can only be killed in order. Number Four, who goes for the most of the book by the name John, has been on the run his whole life with his non-superpowered mentor, waiting for the powers that will allow him to fight back to finally emerge. The book begins with the death of Number Three, leaving Four next in line.
Here’s the problem: there is a lot of batshittery in you can get away with in an action flick that you just can’t in a novel. (I don’t know anything about filmmaking, but the reverse is probably true, too.) For example, the Rule of Cool. The Rule of Cool requires that the movie do whatever will look coolest on screen, regardless of narrative purpose or plausibility. And you know what? I watched Iron Man II twice, basically so I could replay the fight scene with Scarlett Johanssen doing back flips over minionly heads about a bajillion times. I love movies with ridiculous duels on ridiculous moving surfaces and villains who never see the hero clinging beneath the windowsill and bombs that can only be stopped when there are less than three seconds on the timer. The Rule of Cool works. Sometimes.
In I Am Number Four, the question “what will look cool on screen” seems to have factored heavily into deciding what would happen next, and the usual answer is “bigger monsters and some mind powers and maybe an explosion.” But the fact is, the action scenes are just not good enough to get away with it. Writing a good action scene is an alchemical art I know not of, I just know it’s difficult and it’s different from filming one. In Number Four, the action sequences manage to be both visually confusing and emotionally removed, and arithmetic formula which equals boring.
Meanwhile, in the category of other things we might be able to ignore with enough popcorn and CGI, the world-building is cursory at best, and there is an extraordinary amount of explanation by hand-waving or the addition of the adjective ‘Loric.’ Small town high school life is basically described as Grease with cell phones and less hallucinogenic hair-dye. The dialogue ranges from bland to cheesy to occasionally ridiculous, with a couple side trips into are-you-actually-quoting-nineties-pop-now?
And then there are the characters, most of whom are, again, just bland. Two things stuck out enough to make my eyebrows twitch: first, I am utterly fed up with characters who are described, being aliens or clones or whatever it is this week, as being super smart, but usually act really dumb.
And second, what is Sarah the Obligatory Love Interest even doing here? You know, the pretty blonde one who used to be a cheerleader and date asinine football players, but has since seen the error in her ways and now devotes her time to volunteering in animal shelters and cooking and dating slightly goofy younger students? The one who is the most gorgeous girl in school despite never wearing make up because that would be, like, superficial or something? The one who exists primarily to get stuck in a burning building and then wave a teary goodbye to Our Hero while promising that she will Always Wait For Him? Run, Sarah, run! Flee to a book where you won’t be treated as a necessary plot development!