I AM NUMBER FOUR

I AM NUMBER FOUR (2011)
US
Directed by D. J. Caruso

CAST:
Alex Pettyfer - John Smith
Timothy Olyphant - Henri Smith
Dianna Agron - Sarah

PLOT:
     John is an extraordinary teen, masking his true identity and passing as a typical high school student to elude a deadly enemy seeking to destroy him. Three like him have already been killed ... he is Number Four.

REVIEW:
     I saw this last week with friends due to it was cheap and we wanted something to do after we got done with dinner. I actually was interested in the movie when it first came out due to it looked interesting, if not a little teeny unfortunately.  I knew it was based on a series of young adult books that have done reasonable well but I really didn't know much more about it than someone is tracking the main character down to kill him so I effectively went into this one blind.

     While the story is your average fish out of water story, as in it has the basic high school story of new, good looking guy comes to a new school and the jocks don't like him, it does throw in that the lesser characters in it turn out to play a part when you weren't expecting them to. Yet then again this has been done in plenty of recent movies as well, it just transplants aliens in instead of wanna-be vampires and pseudo werewolves and magicians. What does set this movie apart from the rest of the pack is above average writing done on the script. Nothing is made to sound like the audience is dumb or hollow and the characters even though they're your cut-out basics all have a depth to them (even the dumb jock amazingly). Alas that doesn't make up for the stupid talk of the malicious aliens, who it seemed learned how to talk from reading comic books from the 1960's. It's actually worse than it sounds. Also it just seemed like the aliens were just a holding place for a bigger bad that never showed up, well minus the two pets they carry around in a reinforced tractor trailer.

     Now the acting I was more surprised with than anything else in the movie, due to that now one seemed to call it in, and the actors clearly had a good grasp on their characters. Nothing seemed wooden, which in a teen type of movie is hard to do these days because of a certain vampire movie. Yet Timothy Olyphant was above everyone else in the movie as the protector of  Alex Pettyfer character. Olyphant just has a darkness to him that comes out in certain performances, and this is one of them. He knows that he'll probably die protecting his ward and that always hangs over his head and he tries to get John, Pettyfer's character ready for that inevitability. Pettyfer's John Smith is well acted as well, due to the fact that he Pettyfer doesn't make the character a whiny teenager, yet instead, someone that just wants to stay in one place for an extended period of time. To just call a place home and mean it for a change. True, there is a side love story but it's more of a getting to know someone more than anything else.

     Admittingly the movie isn't perfect. There is mention of the destroyed homeworld of the main character briefly and that's it for a back story, which is the one truly sad part in the movie as there is so much potential that just got thrown out the window. Moreover the movie introduces Number 6 halfway through with just a passing "Hi" and then she's gone for another fifteen minutes till she comes back for another sec to only show up full blown during the climax of the movie with a quick introduction only. Thankfully the end of the movie is a joyride of destruction and mayhem. Also if anyone has a chimera like the one in the movie let me know because I would love one, even though it's ugly when it's fully revealed, it's just so, damn, cute! Even with all its flaws I walked out of the theater not disappointed like I thought I would be and I'm actually kinda looking forward to a sequel if they ever make one. 

BEST DEATH:
     50 yard line small tactical grenades that  wasn't so small after all, more like a small tactical nuke.

BEST LINE:
     I play a lot of XBOX.

FUN FACTS:
     Actor Alex Pettyfer has described being an actor to being in prison.

     Number Six's motorcycle is a Ducati 848.

     Sharlto Copley was scheduled to play Henri but had to drop out due to commitments with the A-Team film.

     In an interview with Collider, DJ Caruso talked about directing a sequel using 3D. Alex Pettyfer, Dianna Agron, and Teresa Palmer are contracted to participate in future sequels.