I Am Number Four

An extraordinary young man masks his true identity, passing himself off as a typical student to elude a deadly enemy intent on his destruction. Three like him have already been killed... he is Number Four.
Number Four/John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) looks like a normal teenager who has a pretty easy time getting blondes in bikinis to invite him for night-time rendezvous’ in the ocean. His secret is soon out when one of his kind, Number Three, is found and murdered by a group called the Mogadorians. That secret being that he is from another planet. Yes, an alien with special powers that he hasn’t quite come to master full control over just yet. Sound familiar? No? Ok, I’ll keep going. John is one of nine toddlers who were sent to Earth along with their protectors for their safety. Three are now dead, leaving six remaining. His guardian, Henri (Timothy Olyphant), also from the planet of Lorien is his sole adult influence and protector makes the decision it’s time to pack up and leave, again, from their home of Florida after a small mishap with that same blonde in the bikini exposes his true identity. Still not familiar? Ok, continuing on. 

They wind up in Ohio. Paradise, Ohio to be exact. They attempt, well, Henri attempts to maintain a low profile but of course John can’t stand being cooped up in the house all the time. Under warnings from his guardian, he sets off to school in an attempt to lead a normal life. Not too long into his new High School career, he meets three new people in his life. Sam (Callan McAuliffe) is your somewhat above typical school geek, Sara (Dianna Agron) who immediately presents the audience with the fact that she is going to be the love interest in this story and her bully ex-boyfriend, Mark (Jake Abel). He is the school quarterback who desperately wants his girl back which doesn’t bode so well for “John” after she begins to take a liking to him.

Anyway, due to some sort of spell the Mogadorians are forced to kill the nine remaining Lorien kids in the proper order. Who established the order and how? No idea. Wouldn’t you be pretty ticked off if you were Number One and became aware that you were chosen to be killed first? Perhaps the numbering system is completely random. Let’s make him Number One.”

Derivative though it is, there's enough insanity in I Am Number Four to make it more than worth a watch. It's not original and it's not clever, but even the most curmudgeonly viewer would have to admit that it's a fun piece of genre.


The special effects are where this film shines. It was actually this aspect about the film that made me change my mind about going to see it in the first place. We all know it’s about aliens, aliens who have superpowers and it’s based on a fiction novel. So making the unbelievable stunts and “they probably used a wire” sequences look believable was not an issue. These characters can do things that humans can’t. So watching John stop his darling Sarah from falling off of a roof in mid-air and then catching her before she hit the ground wasn’t going over the top. But it was done in very good quality. 


Although it is a teen-based story, the emphasis on the whole trying to fit in and falling in love thing was dragged way too far out. We’ve already been down that road with every other science-fiction/superhero piece of paper with words on it. Get to the part where they start doing the hard-to-believe stuff that I was speaking about. But alas, this film took a good while to get to that piece of the story. Almost the entire two hours to be exact. 

                                                                               
Alex Pettyfer-John Smith/Number Four
Dianna Agron- Sara Hart
Teresa Palmer- Number Six
Timothy Olyphant- Henri
Callan McAuliffe-Sam


Directed By:
D.J. Caruso


Produced By:
Steven Spielberg