I Am Number Four

D.J. Caruso

Attention Team Edward and Team Jacob, there is a new player in town and his name is Alex Pettyfer.

The 20-year-old British model-turned-actor is the titular Number Four, an alien from the planet Lorien. Another race of aliens, the Mogadorians, is hunting him down and eight others of his race, all of whom have been gifted with special powers.

For some reason yet to be revealed, the Loriens have to be killed in sequence and the first three are eliminated. Number Four takes on the alias of John Smith and tries to keep a low profile at high school.

He does this by promptly falling for Sarah (Glee’s Dianna Agron, above, right), who just happens to be the ex-girlfriend of the bullying school jock. So much for low profile.

The fate of the world might hang in the balance but there is always time for a teenage romance.

Vampire ones cast a spell because when someone who has been around for hundreds of years picks you – a teenage girl imagining herself as Bella in Twilight or Elena in The Vampire Diaries – gee, you sure must be darn special. Here, Pettyfer gets to profess that when Loriens fall in love, they do so forever. Teenage girls: Ready, get set, swoon.

The film has less to offer for the rest of us. The average episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was better-paced than this as it feels mostly like a build-up until the burst of action at the end, where Teresa Palmer makes a cool and dramatic entrance as Number Six.

But then you realise the entire exercise has been a set-up for what comes next.

The film is based on the teen sci-fi novel I Am Number Four, the first of a proposed six-book series, with The Power Of Six set to be released in August.

Will this turn into a hit franchise? Will a Team John emerge and splinter the loyalties of Twilight fans? Stay tuned.

(ST)