Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and for brief language
Cast: Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Teresa Palmer, Dianna Agron, Callan McAuliffe, Kevin Durand
Director: D.J. Caruso
I have a problem with movies that expect me to be hip to their act from the get go. The most curious thing about "I am Number Four" is that it doesn't seem to be trying very hard to engage my interest.
The film comes off as a bit too impressed with itself, treating its audience like rabid fans instead of common viewers whose interest needs to be captured. It's like a door-to-door salesman who skips the pitch and moves right on to the deal-making handshake.
The story involves a hero I didn't like being pursued by villains I didn't fear emerging from a backstory I couldn't care less about. Few movies cater to my apathy like this one. And please, dear reader, don't ply me with how I need to read the Pittacus Lore novel upon which the film is based to better understand what's happening here. From my perspective, there are only two things that can be extrapolated from the experience. Either a) this is a poor adaptation of the novel, or b) authors James Frey and Jobie Hughes (a.k.a. Pittacus Lore) are far less imaginative that I think they are. Pick your poison.
A lazy attempt to combine what seems to be a "Twilight"-type romance with a Michael Bay-style action epic, the plot involves a seemingly ordinary teenager named John (Alex Pettyfer). Seemingly, of course, because he's actually an alien being from a planet called Lorien. He has been born with special powers but now is being hunted by a race of tattooed beings known as Mogadorians. So he, along with nine others, have taken refuge in various locations on earth. John is number four. (The survivors are being hunted in numerical order. I'm sure there's a reason for this. I don't know it.)
He has moved to rural Ohio with his protector Henri (Timothy Olyphant). Out of boredom, John enrolls in the local high school, befriends an extra-terrestrial-obsessed geek (Callan McAuliffe), falls in love with a budding young photographer named Sarah (Dianna Agron), which enrages the school jock (Jake Abel). All the while John is being sought out by another survivor, Number Six (Teresa Palmer).
As the above cliches play out, we wait with minuscule interest as the dreaded Mogadorians get closer to their prey. They take an unusually long time to locate John despite the fact that he is quite conspicuous at the high school, his budding superpowers gaining unwanted attention.
The villains finally set a trap for him by kidnapping Henri, making a call and ordering John to come to a particular location before Henri is killed. John complies, finds Henri in a dilapidated house... but the Mogadorians are nowhere in sight. They've left the premises. Seriously. They actually stepped out for a moment. (What, did they have some prior engagement they just couldn't get out of? Did they forget that had a "thing"? Great game plan.) What we have here is a battle of wits between a refugee hero dying to get caught and a bunch of galactic buffoons who couldn't locate the ground from atop it.
The director is D.J. Caruso, a filmmaker of distinctly modest skill who, at this point in his career anyway, is only as effective as the material he's been given. He handled the suspense genre with "Disturbia" and made "Eagle Eye" fast-paced enough to almost make you forget what a ludicrous premise that was.
This movie, however, is a mess from top to bottom. From the blond-haired, blue-eyed casting choices that make the CW Network look like a cross-cultural melting pot to the muddy CGI effects to the very inconsistencies regarding the characters' superpowers. (Sometimes blue rays fly from Number Four's palms, sometimes not. Sometimes he can propel himself through the air, sometimes not. Sometimes he can alter physical reality, sometimes not.) Not nearly as much thought has gone into this as the filmmakers would have you believe.
The story is apparently the beginning of a would-be franchise. "The survivors are better off fighting together," we hear John say in a final voice-over narration. It's the kind of statement meant to imbue in us the impetus to dive further into this mind-numbing concept. "We will fight. Earth is as good a place as any in the universe. I know." I'll have to take Number Four's word for it. I don't care enough not to.
* out of * * * * stars
