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“I Am Number Four” is based on the first book of a six-book series by Pittacus Lore that. DreamWorks took a chance on when buying the rights for the movie even before the first sci-fi book was released.
Producers Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay along with director D.J. Caruso molded the final product into a roller coaster ride with highs and lows and good and bad moments.
Newcomer Alex Pettyfer stars as, John Smith (Number Four), one of nine special kids sent to earth after the destruction of their planet Lorien to save their race. Unfortunately their enemies, the Mogadorians, followed them to earth seeking each of them out and killing them one by one. However, the Mogadorians have to kill the kids in an order based on their number because of a protection spell put on them on Lorien. The first three are dead putting John next in line leading him and his “protector” Henri (Timothy Olyphant, “The Crazies”) into hiding in the small town of Paradise, Ohio.
Once in Paradise the plot turns towards a teen angst love story similar to “Twilight”. John falls in love with a girl named Sarah (Dianna Agron, “Glee”) who happens to be the ex-girlfriend of the school’s quarterback, Mark (Jake Abel). He also befriends a kid named Sam (Callan McAuliffe) who is obsessed with aliens and is constantly bullied by Mark and a dog that he names Berni Kosar.
Events ensue causing Henri to tell John that it is yet again time to move on to another town and another name, however, John refuses to leave. This leads to the avid use of special effects as Number Six (Teresa Palmer, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”) enters the battle teaming up with John and Henri against the Mogadorians.
If the series is going to be profitable there is a lot of room for improvement.
This includes producing a more believable, less hokey script along with fully developing the characters. The persona of Number Six especially needs to be changed because the one-liners written for her all miss the target.
With this said, there is a lot of potential for future films in this series attributed to the very successful casting of Alex Pettyfer. His performance isn’t fake and lifeless like a lot of characters in this teen angst genre. The casting of Dianna Agron as Pettyfer’s character’s love interest successfully resulted in a weird chemistry that clicks Even Callan McAuliffe did a very good job with a poorly written role (Sam). However, Pettyfer still has the stand out performance showing his potential as an up in coming Hollywood star.
