I Am Number Four is the story of a teenager who is actually one of 9 aliens that were sent to earth when another alien race was destroying their home planet.  Those aliens have now come to earth to kill the remaining 9 and destroy the human race as well.  It’s sorta but not really based on a book of the same name.

The reason I say it’s sort of but not really based on a book is that basically the studio had the brilliant idea to instead of wait for a successful book series to come along to make a film series out of, they’d write their own at the same time as they made the movie.  So there’s a series of books but the movie was sort of made at the same time.  Oh Hollywood.

Anyway moving onto the movie itself, it seems mostly like this movie is a prequel or setting up the plot for the real movie.  Basically there’s a lot of exposition to get through and the main action only starts up in the 3rd act.  Then it ends in a setup for a future film.

What we get in this film is a lot of a kid basically being stupid and not listening to what his protector is telling him, and then a romance plot that is completely unnecessary.  Meanwhile you get glimpses at Number 6, who finally really gets screen time towards the end of the film.  Based on that though, the whole movie should have been about Number 6.  Who is actually doing stuff.

I will say there are some decent action pieces at the end, some well choreographed fights.  Also the lead, Pettyfer was actually decent.  Like I said earlier though Teresa Palmer really takes over the movie as Number 6.

I think it’s safe to avoid this one unless you want a generic sci-fi movie that really is all set up and nothing more.  Perhaps this will become something to check out if they continue the series.  If you want to check it out nonetheless, it comes to Blu-ray and DVD on May 24th.