FILM REVIEW – I AM NUMBER FOUR (2011)
A decent start and finish film with a very dull middle section romance over-stretched to make the story more like the Twilight vampire saga. That this film’s aliens dissolve like vampires on dying adds to that sense too.
The plot is pretty basic. Alex Pettyfer is John Smith, pseudonym for the 4th of 9 super-powered teenagers who have been sent to Earth by their people when the planet Lorien was invaded and destroyed by the Mogodorians. The first three heroes have already been found and killed by the pursuing aliens. Four, protected by a guardian warrior, played by Timothy Olyphant, has to keep changing towns, schools and friends to avoid attracting suspicion, as his powers of light control, speed, super-strength, telekinesis, etc seem to flare up at random times and give away clues to his secrets. Despite requests by his guardian that he keeps a low profile, Smith / 4 keeps trying to live an ordinary life and shows off at thrill sports, etc. His Guardian is able to trace photos taken of 4 on the internet and erase them with sophisticated high tech gadgetry.
At his latest school, Smith quickly falls for a young photography student, played by Dianne Agron, and this romance slows the film down like treacle, barring how it attracts the attention of school bully Mark, (Jake Abel) who makes his character more interesting than the average teen-thug. Mark had an affair with Agron’s Sarah Hart and turns on Smith over that. Mark has a more conventional bullying attitude to Sam Goode, (Callan McCauliffe) who is a UFO conspiracy theorist, with suspicions about Smith who he befriends when he defends him from the bullies.
When Smith uses his powers to humiliate Mark, at a bizarre countryside ghost train – hay ride, all Hell breaks loose as the action attracts intense suspicion. Mark’s father is the local sheriff, and in investigating how his son took such a thrashing, he sees the surveillance technology at the house. Sam Goode sees the incident and realizes his friend is an alien. Smith tells him some of history.
Other UFO nuts are also onto Smith and use their website to attract the Mogodorians, hoodies with heavy face tattoos and a truck full of monsters. They capture Henri, and kill the conspiracy theorists, but the heroes, including Sam, escape, though Henri dies of his wounds.
Smith / 4 is framed for the murders, bringing the entire police force and town down unwittingly to help the Mogodorians. Smith goes to see and say goodbye to his girlfriend but as the traps close in on him, he ends up showing her his powers and everyone converges on the school where the Mogodorians unleash their monsters.
Four receives help from Number Six, an all too occasionally glimpsed until now biker chick with a love of big guns, despite being able to teleport, being fireproof, etc. The stray dog Smith adopted also helps in the battle in very unexpected – definitely not Lassie – ways. Realizing the evil nature of the Mogodorians, bully boy Mark also redeems himself – the last 30-40 minutes of the film are excellent, setting a big advert for the inevitable sequels. Overall, a fun film that really could have been better.
There are several flaws – the Mogodorians look and behave so alien they would inevitably draw attention to themselves, and the idea that they have to kill the 9 heroes in numerical order seems to be thrown out by their attacks on number 6 when 4 (and the never seen 5) have not been completed – they have already killed 6’s guardian. Surely the advantages to 5 6 7 8 and 9 in a battle where they are not to be killed out of sequence would be enormous – 4 isn’t simply the next of the 9 the bad guys found – they seem to need to take them out in a set pattern – an unexplained premise conveniently discarded later.
Arthur Chappell
