An entertaining, visually fun film that misses out on the most important parts of a movie: the story and it's characters. I Am Number Four tells the story of the last remaining aliens from an extinct planet that are being hunted down and killed by the aliens that exterminated it. There are 9 teenage special aliens left and these are the ones that the bad aliens are after. These special aliens also have a guardian who was a warrior on their alien planet whose sole duty is to protect them. Oh, and these special aliens have abilities that range from moving object with their minds, super-human strength, invisibility, etc. Got all that. Because that alone make me have all kinds of questions that never get answered. The film follows, if you can guess, the Number Four alien, played by Alex Pettyfer, and his guardian, played by Timothy Olyphant.
We are told that the first three aliens have already been killed and that Four is on the run with his guardian to Paradise, Ohio. There, he predictably gets tired of being told to hide in their house, so he starts to attend the high school, where he befriends the local nerd, falls in love with the star quarterback's ex-girlfriend, and of course fights with the star quarterback and the other jocks, meanwhile he starts to gain his abilities and strengths. All the while this is happening the bad aliens are closing in on them as well as a mysterious blonde girl. This all occurs over about an hour and fifteen minutes which really is a shame, because the last 30 minutes when the bad aliens and Four fight is extremely fun and entertaining. It's one of the better action scenes I've seen in a while, the big problem being it takes way too long for it to reach the screen.
There are many problems with the story, but mainly they just leave way too many questions unanswered, and this is mainly because the whole film is set up for a franchise with multiple films. This is also what happens when you adapt a novel into a film, there's always going to be aspects left out, but you have to choose what's essential to the story and not, and the writers chose the wrong things. The cast really isn't anything to talk about, they just look good on screen but are essentially television actors, but it's not totally their fault they're working with that caliber of a script.
Some of the good things about the film come mainly from D.J. Caruso. He knows what he's doing when it comes to teenage action movies. This isn't as good as Disturbia (whose success is mainly due to Shia LaBeouf), but he does what he can with the script and the action scenes are where he shines and pulls you out of the coma you've fallen in to. It was also kind of cool to see an action/science fiction film based around the high school scenario even though they missed the mark where others have succeeded, like The Faculty. Lastly, the villains are pretty cool. There gigantic, bald, covered in tattoos with gills and sharp teeth, carry some pretty cool weapons, and have 2 gigantic beasts as pets.
Overall, its not worth the $8 or more you'll have to spend to see it. If you want to sneak in for the last 30 minutes I would highly recommend that or just wait until Blu-Ray/DVD. If you've seen the show Smallville and Jumper it's essentially those 2 put together with a sprinkle of the Twilight movies. Caruso does his best with some very cool and entertaining action scenes but the script is just too bare and full of holes for him to save it. The same goes with the cast, even if they were all very talented actors I'm still not sure it would be a worthwhile movie. With all that being said I would probably go see the sequels because of the last action scene and just to see if some of my questions are answered or just save some money and read the books...
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