Theater Whore: I Am Number 4

Its hard to blend in when you look like a supermodel. So I finally watched I Am Number 4 aka Smallville Marathon. That’s not a knock on the film or Smallville because truth be told I used to be a huge fan of Smallville. But this seriously was like watching a CW television show which shouldn’t be surprising since it was written by a CW writer.

The film stars Alex Pettyfer (Beastly, Wild Child) as John Smith. He is one of the last of his race of super powered beings who now live on Earth. Timothy Olyphant (The Crazies, Hitman, Deadwood) is Henri, his guardian.

This will be full of spoilers.

When John accidentally shows his powers during a party he and Henri once again have to up and move from Florida to Ohio (the equivalent of moving from Hell to Purgatory). John starts going to a new school and within two days experiences enough stuff to make your head hurt. He meets the geek, the cute girl, and the asshole and his group of asshole friends.

Dianna Argon (Burlesque, Heroes) plays Sarah, the cute weird photographer chick. She is all  alone in the school despite being one of the most attractive girls in the school. If you didn’t know this was a science fiction tale by now I guess this slaps you in the face with the fact. Callan McAuliffe (Flipped) plays Sam, the geek who gets hit with shit, shoved into lockers, and paint sprayed on him. You know, the usual. Jake Abel (Supernatural, Strange Wilderness) plays the bully who is so much of a bully its unbelievable. Doesn’t help he looks like a baby Biff from Back To The Future.

Kevin Durand (Legion, Smoking Aces, 3:10 To Yuma) plays the Mogadorian commander. He and his men have been tracking down the last of the aliens so that it will be easier to take Earth over. Okay, here’s where the story really falls apart. Allow me to rant for a second.

It took a while to track down Number 3 in the jungles, I get that. Number 4 was practically begging to be found! Henri has to erase his face off the internet constantly. He meets a girl and is having dinner with her family in less than twenty-four hours and is in her room alone and her parents are like “Whatever…” His powers go off in class and are obviously coming from his hands yet he is able to lie and say it was a prank with a flashlight. His guardian gives him a cell phone and says he will call it every hour to check on him and if he doesn’t answer he’ll assume the killer aliens found him and he will come and help. He doesn’t. John hit’s a guy so hard he flies up a tree, hits three branches on the way down, and doesn’t break anything or die.

Now I can suspend disbelief with the best of them, but come on! An entire team of the evil aliens are destroyed by a morphing dog, a nerd with a shotgun, and a hot chick played by Teresa Palmer (The Grudge 2, Wolf Creek, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) who is Number 6 and found Number 4 in like a day or so. I assume these evil aliens are idiots since anyone who cares to find these Number’s can discover them quite easily. I say wait to watch this on Netflix.

I was really excited to see this film and felt so let down by the writing, the acting, the casting. Oh, the casting! Most of the people who are teens look my age! I’m past 30! I think Timothy Olyphant and Kevin Durand are awesome but even they could not save this film. Doesn’t help that they were barely in it and bad at their characters jobs. The evil alien invader was totally inept going so far as to hire an alien loving nut to catch Henri the guardian (how this happens no one knows) and Henri is killed in the lamest damned way. I’ve seen Disney villains get better deaths.