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Adele Makes A Lousy Movie Look Good

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Posted by Chris Molanphy on 02/18/2011 at 5:00 PM News

The Popdust Files: adele, i am number four

Adele’s 21 is already tearing up the charts across the Atlantic, and it drops next week in America, where she’s following up a 2009 Grammy win and near-platinum U.S. sales for her debut 19. In her home country, she’s a BBC-radio staple. But what about here, where her songs are a bit sultry for the Top 40? The biggest boost she’s getting is from a brilliantly edited commercial for a reportedly lousy movie.

I Am Number Four—opening in theaters today and currently rolling a sorry 28% “fresh” rating at Rotten Tomatoes—kicked off its TV-ad campaign at the Super Bowl with this spot, which prominently features Adele’s killer single “Rolling in the Deep”:

It’s one thing for a song to benefit from an ad for a good movie. Last fall, trailers for The Social Network made a viral hit out of a Belgian women’s choir’s version of Radiohead’s “Creep” and, in another version featuring Kanye West’s “Power,” gave a boost to the then-forthcoming, critic-charming My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Both songs and the movie rubbed off positively on each other.

But when a song makes a junky movie look good, you know it’s something special. For about 30 seconds, the spine-tingling soul of “Rolling in the Deep” makes I Am Number Four look like it’s worth your $10—although that money would probably be better spent next week on an Adele CD.