BOTTOM
LINE:
A
couple of cool action moments exist in this film, but overall, the
execution of this story is quite silly, with the aliens that look
like ‘good looking teenagers’ barely providing much
charm or believability.
THE
GOOD: Based
on a teenager’s science fiction novel, “I Am Number
Four” does not waste its time explaining its backstory about
a group of nine teenagers, who are actually super-powerful and gifted
aliens, that have come to Earth to escape conquerors of their own
planet. They are the last of their kind, and are being hunted down
one by one by the evil Mogadorians. As the title suggests, we follow
the fourth of these teenagers, John Smith (Pettyfer), who has to
keep moving from town to town with his protector (Timothy Olyphant)
to avoid being noticed by the bad guys. There is a lot of the requisite
teenage angst, particularly when John makes friends with the locals,
in particular Sarah (Dianna Agron) who comes to discover the truth
of John’s existence. All of this is for nought however as
the coolest moments in this film relate to the action and suspense
scenes. The opening sequence where ‘number three’ is
killed is effective, largely because much of it is done without
showing much. The last third of the film is perhaps the best, when
John starts utilising his powers against the Mogadorians with the
help of the very tough ‘number six’ (Teresa Palmer).
Perhaps the character that generates the most empathy is John’s
dog, which turns out to be a shape-shifting pet that saves him in
the action scenes by turning in to a huge nasty animal capable of
taking on another huge nasty animal that the Mogadorians have brought
along. The teenage origins of the story from the novel are definitely
present in this story, and are translated in to this film to varying
degrees of success; on some levels, the film does work as teenage
escapist fantasy.
