I AM NUMBER FOUR (PG-13) Ebert: Users: You: Rate This Movie Right Now

movie reviews

Reviews Great Movies Answer Man People Commentary Festivals Oscars Glossary One-Minute Reviews Letters Roger Ebert's Journal Scanners Store

News Sports Business Entertainment Classifieds Columnists search I AM NUMBER FOUR (PG-13) Ebert: Users: You: Rate this movie right now

GO Search powered by YAHOO! register

You are not logged in.

Subscribe to weekly newsletter » times & tickets in theaters

Fandango The Adjustment Bureau Search movie I Will Follow showtimes and buy Ip Man 2 tickets. Rango Take Me Home Tonight I Am Number Four more current releases » about us BY ROGER EBERT / February 16, 2011 one-minute movie reviews About the site » "I Am Number Four" is shameless and still playing Site FAQs » unnecessary. That's sad, cast & credits when a movie casts aside The Adjustment Bureau Contact us » all shame, demonstrates John Alex Pettyfer All Good Things itself willing to rip off Henri Timothy Olyphant Another Year Email the Movie anything that might attract Barney's Version Answer Man » Number 6 Teresa Palmer audiences, and nevertheless Sarah Dianna Agron Biutiful fails. What we have here is Sam Callan McAuliffe Blue Valentine a witless attempt to merge Casino Jack on sale now the "Twilight" formula with Cedar Rapids Touchstone and Dreamworks the Michael Bay formula. It Certifiably Jonathan ends with sexy human presents a film directed by D.J. The Company Men teenagers involved in an Caruso. Written by Alfred Gough Country Strong endless special effects and Miles Millar. Running time: 110 Drive Angry 3D battle with sexy alien minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense The Eagle teenagers who look like sequences of violence and action, Even the Rain humans, in a high school and for language). The Fighter and on its football field. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Printer-friendly » The Green Hornet Let's pause for a moment to Gulliver's Travels Buy now » E-mail this to a friend » consider this apocalyptic Hall Pass battle. It is all special Hidden Love effects. None of it is The Housemaid physically possible. It might How Do You Know? as well be a cartoon; it's I Am Number Four essentially CGI animation intercut with brief bursts of inane dialogue. I Will Follow Brief, because the global action market doesn't much care about The Illusionist dialogue, and besides, when people start talking about something you Inspector Bellamy could run into the hazard of having actual characters in a plot. Minute Ip Man 2 after relentless minute, creatures both human and alien, who we care Just Go With It Buy now » nothing about, wage war and occasionally disintegrate into clouds of Kaboom tiny pixels for no particular reason. The King's Speech The Leopard I like science fiction. The opening shot of "I Am Number Four" holds Louder Than a Bomb promise, as John (Alex Pettyfer), the narrator, explains that he is a Loveless Mogadorian, no doubt from a planet named Mogador. Specifically, he The Mechanic is Mogadorian No. 4. Don't expect me to explain the Mogadorian My Dog Tulip numbering system. He is hiding out on planet Earth and doing No Strings Attached everything possible to disguise himself as a box-office attraction like Poetry Edward Cullen. They have already killed Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Rabbit Hole Buy now » Rango Consider. The "Twilight" movies were about a handsome and sexy Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale teenager who exerted a powerful attraction upon a virginal young girl, The Rite and yet held himself aloof because he was a vampire. Here John is a Sanctum handsome and sexy teenager who is technically unavailable because Season of the Witch he is an alien, although it appears that Mogador may luckily have Somewhere evolved teenager boys indistinguishable from humans to such as Strongman Sarah (Dianna Agron). Take Me Home Tonight The Tempest John has been on the lam around America to remain in hiding from Tron: Legacy Buy now » those who would kill him, and is accompanied by his fellow True Grit Mogadorian, Henri (Timothy Olyphant), who poses as his father and Unknown cautions him that his real father didn't die only to see John marry an Waste Land Earth girl. Whether John has the option of returning to Mogador and The Way Back settling down with a nice Mogadoress to raise Mogadorlings, I am not certain. more current releases »

The high school elements in the plot revolve around John's popularity in some areas (he's an ace on a Jet-Ski) and non-conformity in others on dvd (his palms function like high-powered searchlights). He is also free of Buy now » the ordinary constraints of gravity and can leap for dozens of yards new on dvd and even fly. What this means is that the climactic battle scene can take place largely in the air, and Harry Potter's Quidditch games join Inside Job (3/8) the honor roll of the plundered. Four Lions (3/8) Around a Small Mountain (3/8) There is no doubt a degree of identification available for the primary Love and Other Drugs (3/1) audience of "I Am Number Four." Many teenage girls have perhaps Just Before Nightfall (3/1) imagined themselves in love with a handsome hunk with tousled blond Burlesque (3/1) hair, a three-day stubble, incredible athletic abilities and hands that Megamind (2/25) glow in the dark. That he is Not From Around Here makes him all the Memento (2/22) Buy now » more attractive. Leaving (2/22) Last Train Home (2/22) In the film, we see native Mogadorians, whose faces are deeply scarred with gill-like extrusions. I am not completely sure if this is how more new on dvd » John really looks and he has somehow morphed into teenager form, coming on dvd or if he was forced to flee Mogador because he looked like an alien Edward Cullen. I'm sure this is all spelled out in the movie. Sometimes I find it so very, very hard to care. Hereafter (3/15) Waste Land (3/15) Now imagine "I Am Number Four" as a "novelization." There would be The Times of Harvey Milk (3/22) Buy now» the setup, a little dialogue, and then pages and pages of violent All Good Things (3/29) action: John leaped 100 yards into the air and struck him with a Fair Game (3/29) deadly ray! An enemy fighter disintegrated into an ashy grey cloud of more coming on dvd » pixels! Number 6, her hair flowing in slow motion, whirled around and kicked the Mogadorian Commander! "Look out!" John shouted! great movies on dvd "Behind you!" cried Sarah.

This would quickly grow old. Why audiences enjoy watching protracted Metropolis [2010 Restoration] (11/16) sequences of senseless action mystifies me, but they do. There is no Red Beard (11/18) strategic or spatial way in which the battle in "I Am Number Four" Shoah (12/29) Buy now» makes any sense. It is movement and conflict edited together in Santa Sangre (1/25) incomprehensible chaos. more great movies on dvd » Where is Mogador? Why did nine of its citizens flee to Earth? How did they do so? How is it they breathe our air, eat our food and make such expert use of our grooming products? Why didn't the other Mogadorians say to hell with it and leave them on Earth? What is a Mogadorian life span? Given what we know about the time and distance involved in space travel, are these the same nine individuals who fled Mogador, or their descendants after many generations in an Buy now» interstellar ark? What's the story on those spotlights in their hands?

In all modesty, I think my questions are more entertaining than this movie.

Digital TV In Deals Best Value for Digital TV In. Find NexTag Sellers' Lowest Price! www.NexTag.ca

Canada DVD Rental Guide We review all 14 Canadian DVD rental sites so you pick the best. Canada-DVD-Rental-Guide.com

Ads by Yahoo!