CAST: Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Teresa Palmer, Dianna Agron, Callan McAuliffe, Kevin Durand; DIRECTOR: D.J. Caruso; WRITERS: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Marti Noxon; GENRE: Action/Adventure, Suspense/Thriller; RUNNING TIME: 104 min.
Technical Assessment: 2.5
Moral Assessment: 2.5
CINEMA Rating: For viewers aged 14 and up.
John (Alex Pettyfer) is Number Four, an alien disguising himself on earth as “John Smith” to elude annihilation by the Mogadorians. Looking like a handsome ordinary American teenager he easily blends in with the rest of the high school crowd. Everybody takes his being a jet ski whiz as a simple athletic gift until one day, at the beach, when out from his leg emanates a strange light as he writhes in pain. It’s the third scar branded into his leg, and it means his Mogadorian pursuers have succeeded in killing Number Three. He has a protector posing as his father in the person of fellow Mogadorian Henri (Timothy Olyphant) who thinks it is time to move out to a safer hiding place, but John would not leave his girlfriend Sarah (Dianna Agron) behind. Meanwhile the Mogadorians are closing in and a confrontation becomes inevitable, revealing the presence on earth of a couple of John’s allies, one of whom is the Number Six (Teresa Palmer).
I am Number Four looked promising in the trailer but the real thing seems like a patchwork quilt whose most colorful elements are facsimiles of box office hits. A love between an earthling and Someone Who’s Not From Here? Doesn’t Twilight have that? Battles fought in the air? Plenty of that in Harry Potter! A cute puppy morphing into a monster? Well, don’t flashy cars go clank-clackety-clank to become giant metal murderers in … was it Transformers and/or Hulk? A sexy chick kicking ass with nary a drop of sweat? Remember Michelle Pfeiffer, Zhang Zi Yi, Michelle Liu, La Jolie and others who’ve done superwoman stuff? And what about ugly, menacing aliens? Ho-hum. But that’s not the most disappointing. The patch up job would have been tolerable if there had been a good plot to sew it up decently. But as it is, it seems like I Am Number Four has been produced to sell—only that, to sell, targeting 12-15 year olds who get high on escapist fantasy-cum-forbidden-love formula movies.
Because there’s no coherent story really testing the moral strength of the protagonists, all the violence and destruction seems mere debris floating in the air, defying gravity and direction, thereby remaining weightless and worthless as indicators of sound judgment. The lack of a story explains the lack of meaningful dialogue advancing the story. The Olyphant character almost provides a semblance of depth to his nearly-human thinking but it gets buried beneath the raucous computer-generated action. This patchwork movie leaves many holes uncovered, is fraying at the edges, and in its overload of borrowed colors loses its identity.
