When a movie has the sole aspiration to entertain its audience, without any hint of deeper meaning or a hidden agenda, it is interesting to learn what Hollywood has decided to be the recipe for pure entertainment. I Am Number Four does not seek to reveal anything about our humanity, nor does it attempt to teach us about love, hate or how to feel at all.
That said, the recipe generally works here for director D.J. Caruso. In a nutshell, the movie is about a hunky blonde teenager from another planet (Alex Pettyfer), sent to Earth by his powerful parents as a baby when his people were destroyed by an evil alien race. They’re dead now, and accompanied by his warrior-sensei protector, played by Timothy Olyphant, they live life on the run from the evil that has tracked them down to kill them, and Earth, and everything, apparently.
Caruso clearly went through his checklist of time-tested money-making techniques and assembled them with a professional team of hands. Let’s see… are there epic strings when the plot calls for drama, and a snappy pop song for the sunny days? Check. Are the good guys beautiful, and the bad guys ugly? Check. Is the love interest (Teresa Palmer) just pretty and talented enough to be believable opposite our hero, without overshadowing his own mediocrity? …Check. The action even includes some top-notch special effects and thrilling acrobatics, which make up for more than I could have believed possible walking into the theater.
The biggest problem with I Am Number Four, however, is its complete abandonment of reality for the sake of saving time. I’m aware that the film is a sci-fi fantasy-thriller for a younger demographic, but that does not mean they couldn’t have constructed a world that at least came close to feeling natural and genuine. In one scene, for example, Olyphant’s character appears to be on the phone with the protagonist’s public school, and the phone dialogue is as follows: “Daniel won’t be in school for the rest of the semester. Okay…you too.” And then he hangs up the phone. Does that sound anything like the world we live in? These poor bits of dialogue run rampant throughout the film, and it really is a shame, because without them, the story would probably feel infinitely more pressing and important. As in, I might even care whether or not the leads succeed in saving the world. But ultimately, the setting (and characters) exist simply to move the plot forward, and the story feels all the cheaper as a result.
