I Am Number Four (2011)
Directed by D.J. Caruso
A teenage fugitive with an incredible secret races to stay one step ahead of the mysterious forces seeking destroy him. With three dead and one on the run, the race to find the elusive Number Four begins. Outwardly normal teen John Smith never gets too comfortable in the same identity, and along with his guardian, Henri, he is constantly moving from town to town. With each passing day, John gains a stronger grasp on his extraordinary new powers, and his bond to the beings that share his fantastic fate grows stronger.
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Here are the Cliff's Notes on "I Am Number Four": "Twilight" with aliens.
Almost exasperatingly predictable and derivative from the get-go, I Am Number Four is soulless factory-line junk that might even struggle maintain the interest of its core audience – the Twilight set – from numbing over-familiarity; one is too often reliving moments from Heroes, Roswell, The Faculty, Transformers, et al to enjoy the film.
Conceived by Oprah-vilified author James Frey as the beginning of a potential blockbuster franchise, I Am Number Four is nothing but a million little pieces from prior superhero series and the Twilight saga.
They are there for the bottom line: to keep their mouths shut and appease Dreamworks Pictures' derivative, half-assed attempt at appealing to the " Twilight " demographic while earning a hefty paycheck in the process.
The plot of the last “Twilight” movie, right?
…dapting young-adult novels into movies has become big business for Hollywood over the last few years, but the success of the “Twilight” films has led studios to focus on a specific type of story – namely, ones about mopey teenagers falling in love with just the right amount of action to convince male moviegoers to tag along with their female counterparts.
Lucky for everyone behind I Am Number Four, their target audience may not be old enough to have seen the first Spider-Man in theaters, much less Pretty in Pink, and all of the movie's moments of unoriginality could wash right over the girls wooed by Pettyfer's good looks or the boys in need of a Michael Bay action fix before the next Transformers movie.
With Michael "Boom Boom" Bay producing, it's not surprising that "Number Four" comes fully loaded with some of the best action any high school kids have gotten since Shia LaBeouf in "Transformers."
Based on the young-adult novel by Pittacus Lore (pseudonym used by James Frey and Jobie Hughes), it’s been adapted by Alfred Gough & Mark Millar (creators of TV’s “Smallville”) and Marti Noxon, superficially directed by D.J. Caruso (“Disturbia,” “Eagle Eye”) and over-produced by Michael Bay (“Transformers”).
With some big names attached to “I Am Number Four” (“Transformers,” “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” director Michael Bay produces and Steven Spielberg was previously attached as a producer), the film invests heavily and successfully in its action sequences and special effects.
But the spirit of the movie is heavy and calculating, in the "Transformers" vein.
This is, after all, a film produced by Bay, the man behind the " Transformers " series.
It’s all glum, pseudo-rebellious attitude, with none of the gentle charm of John Carpenter’s Starman.
A hodgepodge stew of Rebel Without a Cause, Twilight and War of the Worlds amounts to not very much at all in D.J. Caruso’s I Am Number Four, a by-the-numbers adaptation of Pittacus Lore’s alien love-and-adventure book.
That’s an angst-and-alienation genre harking back to “Rebel Without a Cause” and, more recently, spawning the “Twilight” mega-franchise.
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Just as he displayed in 2006's " Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker ," Pettyfer brings a life to his character of John Smith that approximately resembles that of a sawed-off tree stump.
By the end it's even turned into a kind of Spider-Man knockoff, a young man standing in a graveyard, contemplating the meaning of his newfound great power and responsibility.
The screenplay comes from Alfred Gough (“Spider-Man 2”), Miles Millar (“Spider-Man 2”) and Marti Noxon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) based on the novel by Jobie Hughes and James Frey.
It's played straight throughout; preferring to focus on John's internal conflict instead of over-loading on action and messily swinging for cheap gags (hello, Transformers 2 !). Co-writers Gough and Millar launched the small screen's Smallville and had a hand in Spider-Man 2, so they're adept at working in this kind of genre territory.
A veteran composer, Rabin’s music can be heard across the film gamut in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” “G-Force,” “Get Smart,” “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” “Hot Rod,” “The Guardian,” “Snakes on a Plane,” “Con Air,” “Deep Blue Sea” and “Armageddon”.
There are no vampires in I Am Number Four, but the emotional palette is ripped from Twilight (mope, yearn, glower), and the character dynamics from The Lost Boys: As the new kid in town, Pettyfer falls for Glee’s Dianna Agron; deals with her alpha-male ex and his coterie, who either want to embrace Pettyfer or beat him down; and gets some help from a cringing-but-knowledgeable little-brother figure.
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In a battle between Palmer as Number 6 (who can shield the pretty boy against fiery blasts and fly with mostly invisible blue streaks through thin air) and Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity from “The Matrix,” we’d have one hell of an entertaining toss-up.
Instead, we just get a whole lot of high school drama that feels more like “The Karate Kid” than some epic sci-fi adventure, with John spending more time battling a pack of Cobra Kai bullies instead of the nasty aliens that want him dead.