Cinema 2011 #22: I am Number 4

You know, sometimes it’s hard being a teenage alien superhero who looks like he should be standing in the doorway of Abercrombie & Fitch. All John wants are some dudes to hang with and some bodacious babes to join him for that midnight paddle. But things are about to take a turn for the worse for this high school hero. Instead of deep meaningful confessions with the Breakfast Club, it’s a lot more running for your life from some skeezy geezers from planet evil and those nasty brutes from the football team. Throw in some multi-syllabic mythological mumblings (word of the day: Mogadorian), a free-spirited honey with an instamatic, and leave to simmer for 109 minutes. Voilà, I am Number 4, the latest slice of sci-fi/fantasy trying to cash in on teenage pockets before the sun fully goes down on the twilight of this trend.

Off the bat, let me first say that 4 is no worse than its vampire counterpart, but it is also not as enjoyable. The Twilight Saga will be around for two more summers, and will hopefully continue to offer up unintentionally hilarious scenes of women being put back in their place and smell-the-fart acting in lieu of romantic longing. Oh joy.

The problem with 4 rests largely in the hands of its director, D.J. Caruso. Coming off the back of reasonably enjoyable thrillers Disturbia and Eagle Eye, he does manage to lend an energetic sense of action to this yarn, eventually, but splits the seams first with some dull and leaden development of the aliens as people. The heavy-handed unraveling of their story is neither interesting nor arresting enough to draw us in, and at times it conveniently draws a veil of ignorance over proceedings; why did the baddies chase 4 and friends all the way to Earth? Why do they have to kill them off in some sort of cosmic paint-by-numbers sequence? Will dying his hair blond actually throw a group of migrant mercenaries with evil scars (obviously, only the goodies get the chiseled features) off the scent? 

In fact, credit where its due, the last 20 minutes of 4 are the kind of breakneck action sequences Twilight wishes it could pull off, with Alex Pettyfer showing that his mahogany machismo is at least good for something. These scenes sizzle with scorching lasers and billowing explosions, but do lack any sort of feeling of threat to the characters. Sometimes killing off the nerdy sidekick is a good idea.

Sadly, though, the rest of the film sozzles with boring and predictable fare. There’s a shy and alternative girl (Glee’s Diana Agron), breaking free of the high school stereotypes by using a fish-eye camera and dressing like a hipster. She and John meet on Monday. On Tuesday there’s a tryst. By Thursday they’re the new poster couple for teenage abstinence and fidelity, and Craig David weeps for his fleeting success. Then there’s the captain of the football team, whose jealous streak may cause problems as it manifests into a troubling dose of sociopathic menace – seriously, the way this guy likes to bully is practically fetishistic. These teenage threads are so badly woven, I am Number 4 wishes it was the film Twilight also isn’t.

It’s all a bit boring, really. Certainly, there are the bones of a decent movie in this, and aliens in the high school have worked before (see The Faculty for a blacker tinge to this tripe). But it doesn’t take an on-the-lam alien to work out that I am Number 4 just doesn’t add up.

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