I Am Number Four Review

• 22nd Feb 2011

You’ve seen this film before: Smallville, Heroes, Harry Potter, Twilight – it’s an overloaded genre these days, and I Am Number Four adds nothing but more of the same.

A young man is coming of age and coming to terms with his supernatural powers whilst challenging the authority of his guardian/mentor. He meets a nice, earthly girl and falls in love before finally joining other misfits and to take a stand against the leather-clad baddies. Intrigued? I thought not.

A familiar theme can be liberating, freeing the storyteller from the need to explain too much, allowing them to delve deeper, question more, add layers of character and complexity, even have a bit of fun. But this film’s makers appear to have their eyes too firmly on the franchise prize to be bothered with any of that.

Slickly produced simplicity is the result. Stereotypes abound – the fallen cheerleader, the science geek sidekick, the bullying footballer, and goth-like bad guys with foreign accents. They look fabulous, surprise you little and aren’t overly credible or remotely likeable (when a bit-part beagle steals the show, you know you’re in trouble).

Grandiose cinematography is overlaid with narration that assumes the viewer is still in pre-school, complex aspects of the storyline are insultingly glossed over and the romantic subplot is unsatisfyingly lukewarm and wholesome. For entertainment you’ll have to be content with the occasional spectacular glow of supernatural power and later in the film ray-gun shootouts and ridiculously large explosions.

Psychological thrills, dramatic tension and (intentional) humour are conspicuously absent.

“Red Bull is for pussies,” says someone mid-bad-guy-massacre in a delightful example of failed scriptwriting. Perhaps the makers of I Am Number Four think intelligence, subversion and originality is for pussies too. I’d like to see their merchandising aspirations thwarted by a generation of savvy teens with higher, cleverer standards. But I’ll no doubt be disappointed there too.

Kathy Alys