Saving The World (In Just Four Minutes...): Red Carpet Premiere: "I Am Number FOUR"

I love L.A.

Have I told you that lately?

Oh... and I love Shanyn Day for tipping me off to a tweet she saw about tickets to the premiere of "I Am Number Four". Thanks to her, Rich and I got tickets to see the red carpet premiere in Westwood. I mean... if there was ever a movie for Rich and I to see at a premiere, its this one. With my love of the number four, and Rich's love for sci-fi action movies it was a perfect match.

Before I get to the actual movie, I will share two important lessons I learned Wednesday:

1. Movie premiere tickets are not quite like TV taping tickets. Since moving to L.A. I've had the opportunity to go to several TV show tapings, and they always overbook them... so you need to show up hours in advance to ensure that you are going to get in. When we got the tickets for this premiere and it had a lot of the same verbiage ("arrive early," "first come first serve," "purposely overbooked"... etc.) I thought we were going to have to show up several hours in advance of the 4:30 call time in order to get in. Not true. Rich and I arranged to leave work early and got there at 2pm to stand in line. There as no need. We could have shown up at 4:00pm or even probably 6:00pm and still gotten in. The movie didn't start until 7:30, so we basically did a LOT of standing. Which leads me to lesson number two:

2. Having a partner that you truly love is such a blessing. With all the frustrations that could have possible turned into negativity in this situation, Rich and I stayed in good spirits and had a great time together. There are so many other details I could go into regarding the odd way DreamWorks handled this premiere (example: the first people in line who showed up earliest ended up with the worst seats in a completely separate theatre than the stars of the movie...). But no matter what the frustration was, Rich and I took it with a "what happens, happens" attitude and took it for what it was worth. After all, we are lucky enough to see a FREE, advance screening of a movie we were both excited about... and in the meantime we got to see some of the stars of the movie on the red carpet. Pretty cool! And... can I just say that if you have someone in your life that you can stand in line with for 5.5 hours and you are still smiling afterwards, you've got a pretty good thing going. This experience solidified that for me.

OK... so enough lovey-dovey schmooshy stuff... lets get on to the movie:

If I had to wrap it up in a quick sentence or two, I would say this: If you have any doubts or questions in the first half of the movie... just wait it out because the last 20-30 minutes are pretty awesome.

More extensively, I'd say this: This movie really has a little bit of everything. It's got some love story... some action.... some sci-fi.... and honestly I jumped at this movie more than I jump at most horror/thriller films, so it even had that. I think most people would watch the movie and walk away enjoying it.

Basically its about this teenage guy who is actually an alien. He's from another planet, but when he was a kid he was sent to Earth with a "protector" along with eight other children who are believed to have special powers and will be able to come back to thier home planet and save it later on from mass destruction of these other aliens from an opposing planet (the Mogs). Ok... ok.... so after that first long sentence, you are probably thinking "Matt Eickhoff actually watched this movie??!?". Yes. I did. Sci-Fi usually isn't my thing, but the story is intriguing so I really liked it. Long story short, the Mogs are attempting to kill each of the 9 kids before they grow old enough to mature thier powers and come back to thier home planet (Lorien) and defend it. The catch is that the kids all have a symbol and an order to them... and they can only be killed in that order. John, the main character, is number FOUR, and at the beginning of the movie, number three is killed. So now he's next on the list. The movie is basically his attempt to avoid being killed by the Mogs in hopes to stay alive and still defend Lorien.

BUT.... of course.... what would a movie be without a little love story to mess things up. :-) Sarah, played by Glee's Dianna Agron, plays this ex-popular girl who now is kinda the loner-artsy type. John falls for Sarah and it makes things very complicated. I was actually really excited to see Dianna in this movie because I really do love her on Glee. She was OK in the movie... but I actually don't know if the casting was quite right for the character. She's almost too pretty... and fits the popular girl role too well to be believed as the "now-loner" of the school. But still, it was enjoyable to watch her on screen (and see her in real life as she walked down the red carpet).

So.... I do have to admit, the movie did have a tad bit of a Twilight-ish feel to it... simply in the way that there is a human girl who loves a non-human and the non-humans struggle to over choosing love or life. The dialog is pretty simple, and the story is straightforward... also in the way Twilight is. But! There are two things that take this movie way beyond Twilight in my opinion: First... the action. Again, not much of an action movie kinda guy... but the way they pulled together the effects of the characters special powers, along with the battles with the Mogs, I actually thought the action and effects were quite well done and pretty believeable for an "alien-battle-on-Earth" scenario. The second reason I think its better than Twilight is two words: Alex Pettyfer. Whoo! This guy is smokin'! I mean... he's way better eye candy than Jacob and Edward combined! That was enough to keep me awake through the whole thing (which of those of you who have seen movies with me, you know that is sometimes a struggle).

To wrap up, I would say definitely go see I Am Number Four. Is it going to win Oscars? No. But its a fun, action packed movie that is definitely worth the admission price.

Here are some other pictures from the day: