BRINGS LAUGHS, A HANDSOME BRITISH IMPORT, THRILLS.

JILLIAN KERSTETTER
LAYOUT EDITOR

What do you get when you mix a director with a penchant for action films, a handsome leading man and a popular young female co-star with strangely named aliens and a simplistic plot line? The result is a mildly entertaining movie with a remarkably killer soundtrack that should, nevertheless, be reserved for a Redbox rental night.

Any good moviegoer knows that you cannot expect too much from a mid-budget, nonfranchise, original script teenage thriller. Accordingly, “I Am Number Four” was not a movie I was going into with high expectations. The storyline is basic enough: a young man, an alien from another planet, arrived on Earth in order to try to escape from a second group of evil aliens who are trying to kill him and, in the process, destroy Earth as well.

Even with the ill-named bad guys (Mogadorians…really?) and the slightly campy presentation of clichéd high school situations, the film does a good job with pacing and the audience is never left waiting for the action to begin. However, one cannot help but laugh at the sheer audacity of the situation the main character, John Smith (Alex Pettyfer), is in and the failure to create a realistic crisis even in the midst of pure science fiction. This is where the movie struggles to connect with the audience.

As far as acting goes, I will say that Pettyfer most certainly has a future as a Hollywood leading man. His rugged good looks, amazingly good American accent (yes ladies, he’s from Britain) and overall excellent acting chops make him both easy on the eyes and believable in his role. The film will also make “Glee” fans happy to know that Dianna Agron holds her own (both on the big screen and small) as she proved to be both likable and charming in the role of the movie’s “damsel-in-distress.”

If nothing else, “I Am Number Four,” allowed both of these actors to get their names out in the open as potential big screen actors even if the movie they chose to do this through was not exactly “grade A.”

Overall, “I Am Number Four” will not go down in my book as a complete disaster or a complete failure. It could have been better and it could have had a more urgent and believable scenario to push the characters along. If the plot contains aliens, the writers still need to make the characters and their plights more relatable to a human audience, but again, it was not a complete disaster. The effects seemed fine—even cool at times. Overall, you will not be bored. A forewarning: if you are thinking of spending your hardearned money on seeing a movie this weekend, be sure that you be fine hearing the word Mogadorian over and over again. Trust me, it is difficult to contain your laughter.

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