MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:49 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right
| I Am Number Four Movie Stats & Links | |
| Starring: | Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Dianna Argon, Teresa Palmer |
| MPAA Rated: | PG-13 |
| Released By: | Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment & Dreamworks Studios |
| Release Date: | May 24, 2011 |
| Kiddie Movie: | Not too young – teen girls mostly. |
| Date Movie: | Not really. |
| Gratuitous Sex: | Skimpy outfits are all. |
| Gratuitous Violence: | Alien violence, and some hinted at gruesomeness. |
| Action: | Lots of chasing and running around. |
| Laughs: | Not really. |
| Memorable Scene: | Nothing stands out. |
| Memorable Quote: | Nah. |
| Directed By: | D.J. Caruso |
| Produced By: | Michael Bay |
Sometimes a movie seems to try to be a few too many things, as is the case I found with “I Am Number 4.” The premise is fairly simple – There is a group of people left here from another planet, and they have some special powers. The problem is that their planet is pretty much gone, and these assassin dudes have been dispatched to kill them. Sounds simple enough. Now try to make it a “I’m a teenager and have all of these other issues to deal with,” and also leaving some of the characters as caricatures of bad dudes, and a grandiose ending, and you get “I Am Number 4.”
Okay, I made things a little simpler than they should be, but for this movie we have John Smith (Alex Pettyfer). He seems like your normal, teen, outsider, only he’s an alien. He has his protector (Timothy Olyphant), but he’s not really one to help John as he’s discovering things like girls, and his abilities. All of his life he has been on the run from assassins dispatched to kill him from his home planet, and in the world of the internet, things get even harder when your image can pop up at any time when someone snaps a photo and puts it on their Facebook page. So John can’t be normal, yet he still likes to fall for the ladies, and of course that tends to be a problem when he ends up in his new small town. The problem is that the bad guys are hot on his trail, there’s some weird backstory about a kid at the school whose dad seemed to be on the trail of our alien visitors, and of course John suffers the same “nerd v jock” attitude in most high school themed movies.
Look, for me, this movie is mostly one for the teen girls, looking for the cute guy with superpowers, and they’ll find that in John. For the dudes, well, this dude anyway, things got almost too cheesy with the bad guys as they carted around this big monster in a truck and scared little kids as they passed them in their car. In the end it’s kind of just an okay movie, and I’ll wrap things up with a 2 stars out of 5.
As far as the Blu-ray and DVD, you don’t get too much in the way of extras. Most of the deleted scenes are better off deleted, although I did like the scene with the Mom, and the bloopers are a waste of DVD space. I do admit I did like the “Becoming Number Six” featurette, which was kind of a “The Making of…” thing, especially seeing how “blue-screen” kind of scenes ended up becoming what they were in the movie. In the end there’s nothing that special – you’re getting this set for the movie.
A movie that had potential for a series of films, but one that gets lost in typical “I’m a teen trying to fit in high school” story. That’s my end take on “I Am Number Four.”
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!