I AM NUMBER FOUR

I Am Number Four stars Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Dianna Agron, Teresa Palmer, Callan McAuliffe and Kevin Durand. Directed by D.J. Caruso. Rated PG-13 with a running time of 1 hr. and 44 mins. Studio: Buena Vista/DreamWorks.

John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) is a fugitive from the planet Lorien on the run from ruthless enemies sent to destroy him. Changing his identity, moving from town to town with his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant), John is always the new kid with no ties to his past. In the small Ohio town he now calls home, John encounters unexpected, life-changing events; his first love (Dianna Agron), powerful new abilities and a connection to the others who share his incredible destiny.

I Am Number Four was a pleasant surprise. While in no means is it a great movie, I have to say that it is the best movie I have seen in 2011 so far. Its got all the elements of an entertaining movie: action, drama and romance (which I think is the one of the weaker parts of the movie). Lets start with the lead actor Alex Pettyfer. This is his first major starring role and I think he did a good job. He perfected all of the emotions his character goes through and he doesn't over act it. Lets just say he is no Taylor Lautner or Robert Pattinson which of course is good news for Pettyfer. I had to make the Twilight reference since some people have been comparing I Am Number Four to Twilight, and I think I Am Number Four is infinitely better than that garbage Twilight. Pettyfer's love interest is Dianna Agron and she does fine for what she has to do but I didn't see anything special from her. Timothy Olyphant plays Henri who is Johns guardian and he did a good job too. You could tell that his character really cared for John and he wants him to succeed and defeat the mongadorians who are trying to kill John, even though John feels he can be over protective. Yeah I know the name Mongadorians is pretty corny but whatever. Teresa Palmer plays Number 6 and she does some cool fight scenes and kicks some Mongadorian ass, but shes really only in the movie for the last 25 minutes.

Michael Bay produced this film and I was very worried about that. But for it being a Michael Bay production there weren't too many mindless explosions and you could actually tell what was going on in the action scenes unlike his other movies like Transformers. The action wasn't anything new or groundbreaking but it was still entertaining. This movie is set in high school and so of course you have your bullies that John butts heads with and of course you have John sticking up for the school nerd and of course you have John falling for the misunderstood hot blonde girl. The movie has all of your high school cliches and it gets a bit tiring but the story intrigued me enough to keep me interested. I actually would like to see a sequel to this movie because they have a lot of other stories to explore. The film ends with Number Four and Number 6 going to search for numbers 5,7,8 and 9. Don't worry the beginning of the movie explains why there isn't any numbers 1,2 and 3 around. Im very intrigued by the idea of having more numbers out there and seeing their powers.

Now to the stuff that didn't really work. The film tries to have the teenage angst like the Twilight movies. To me that was the weakest part of the movie and it was boring to watch. I know they have to have a love interest but I'm just sick of seeing it this way over and over in so many movies. The villains of the movie were also kind of weak. Kevin Durand hams it up playing the leader of the Mongadorians. If they make a sequel to the movie they definitely need some better villains or better actors to portray them.

I Am Number Four isn't perfect or really good by any means but it was still a surprise. I went to see this movie thinking it would be really bad but I'm glad I was wrong. For any future sequels there needs to be better villains and they should probably step up the action a little bit. Also if they explore the other numbers and keep the intriguing spirit from this movie then i think the sequels could be a lot better. The studio obviously wants to make this a franchise and I think that wish can become a reality. I Am Number Four was a fair movie.

B-