I Am Number Four (2011)

I Am Number Four is pure teen melodrama…except when it’s not. The film opens on a darkly lit scene of a good-looking teenage boy–with some remarkable speed and agility–and his guardian. In a loud and frantically scored run through the African jungle, they are hunted and dispatched by a bunch of ugly, ferocious aliens. The camera zooms across the globe–over mountains, oceans and other sundry landscapes–to the Florida Keys and the titular Number Four (hunky Alex Pettyfer). At that very moment, the tanned blond beefcake, who goes by the Earth name John Smith, gets a white-hot mystical tattoo on his leg, indicating that the third of his compadres is dead.

John was one of nine survivors of a planet called Lorien, which was wiped out by a race of competing aliens called the Mogadorians. The alien children with special abilities are hiding from the “Mogs” in disparate corners of Earth with their respective protectors (for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, these guys are like Watchers, only less British). The big meanies with shark teeth and facial gills won’t stop until all the Loriens are dust in the wind. I mean that literally. When they die, the Loriens dissolve into special-effects sparkly ash.

There’s only one thing to slow the Mogs down: They must kill the kids in order. Lucky for them, Number Four, who relocates from the Florida Keys to Paradise, OH, with his protector Henri (Timothy Olyphant), is making it exceedingly easy to find him. He is busy making waves at his new school, fighting with a gang of bullies headed up by the high school quarterback (Supernatural’s Jake Abel) to protect his new bestie, Sam, a short-kid weirdo with a UFO-abducted dad (Callan McAuliffe) and his new crush, Sarah, the ex-cheerleader turned cosmopolitan hipster (Glee’s Dianna Agron). You know she’s artsy because she shoots 35mm film and wears a knit snood from Forever 21.

Did I say crush? I mean great and enduring love of his life. It seems that the Loriens, like a certain set of fangless glittering vampires, mate for life. That must be why John won’t stop the pretty blonde from snapping pics of him and posting them all over the interwebs, which the Mogs conveniently know how to use. But I bet bodacious, bad-ass Number Six (Teresa Palmer), who arrives late on the scene with her smoldering Aussie accent, will have something to say about this “romance.” I’ve been here before. I recognize that Tess Harding.

In spite of its dubious provenance–from a book co-written by Jobie Hughes and disgraced “memoirist” James Frey under the pseudonym Pittacus Lore–I don’t hate the story behind I Am Number Four. I recognize that it is essentially Twilight with aliens. But who am I to cast aspersions? I once loved a television show called Roswell, described back then as Dawson’s Creek with aliens. I also recognize that the plotlines and mythos of the film are derivative amalgams of those two, along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville. The writing team behind the latter, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, even serve as the screenwriters here. But, again, isn’t the whole point that there’s a certain commonality in the coming of age of all manner of creatures?

All right, so Pettyfer and Agron hardly turn in Oscar-worthy performances. They are sufficiently moody, rebellious and moony-eyed to get the point across. Certainly, they’re more believable than Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were in the first Twilight installment. Plus, Timothy Olyphant is really effin’ hot. I’ll even overlook the fact that he’s given so little screen time–since I’m not the target audience here–and go watch an episode of Justified off the DVR.

What bugs me about I Am Number Four are the gaping plot holes that have obviously been left open in the hopes of a sequel. Millar and Gough never explain, for example, why the Mogs hunt the kids in order. This one point is such a pivotal storytelling device that it is unforgivable to not explain it. While we’re asking questions, how did the Loriens come to choose Earth as their new home? Why do they look so much like humans, albeit preternaturally attractive ones? Other than surviving, did the nine have a mission?

Throw me a bone here, people. I’m a fan of supernatural/paranormal/science fiction starring gorgeous young people. I want to like your movie. For all its hackneyed high school tropes and its implied sexual metaphors (the lead character shoots hot light from his hands when he gets excited, hehehe), I almost did. But, why are there CG space monsters in this film’s third act?

Yes, I said space monsters. It seems the Mogadorians have been carrying them around in a trailer and feeding them whole frozen turkeys for the entire film. When director DJ Caruso (no doubt influenced by producer Michael Bay) finally unleashes them, they are so unrealistic they might as well be made out of Play-Dough and animated by Claymation. Not only do space monsters make no sense in this story, they also detract from an opportunity to see what Wonder Twins powers could have been created by the joining together of Numbers Four and Six. That would have really pissed Earth girl off, no?

And that is just one of the many preposterous technology-aided “action” turns I Am Number Four takes in its final 20 minutes. After all is said and computer-generated, the entire town of Paradise is little more than so much scorched earth that, what, no one will notice? What a waste of a perfectly good teen melodrama.