By Rachel Lutz
I Am Number Four, starring Alex Pettyfer and Dianna Agron, is about an alien that comes to Earth to escape his the invasion on his home planet. Nine children from this planet escape, and are being hunted and slaughtered one by one by the same aliens that invaded their home.
John Smith (Pettyfer) comes to Paradise, Ohio in an attempt to blend into yet another high school after getting a new scar on his calf, signaling the death of Number Three. There he meets the outcasted Sarah Hart (Agron) and they are instantly attracted to one another. Luckily for these two, the aliens don't love like the humans do – they fall for life.
The special effects in this movie were the reason it was so visually stunning. The stunts were cool, and Michael Bay's explosion scenes are enormous. It was easy to figure out what the aliens' powers were. No guessing needed because the effects were so well-executed.
Smith's animal protector, the beagle puppy, was confusing. The first time you see it, it is in the form of a lizard at the beach. It sneaks into the trunk as John and Henri travel to Ohio, and then it shape-shifts into a dog. At first, I thought it was a spy from the Mogadorians, and it wasn't explained until the final fight scene that it was a benefactor for Smith.
Another plus to the movie was the character, Number Six, played by Teresa Palmer. She was introduced randomly in the beginning of the movie by blowing up her house, and then we don't see her again until the end as she's coming to Smith's rescue. Her powers were different than Smith's, but they complimented each other in the final fight against the Mogadorians.
This movie really showed the negative effects of the Internet on everyday life. Each time they moved, Smith and Henri had to run a scan of their faces and delete anything their high-tech computers found of them on the Internet. Pictures disappeared, videos were taken down, and even John's documents on high school paperwork vanished. Sarah ran a photography website, "Strangers in Paradise," in which she posted pictures that she took without the knowledge of her subjects.
Something that really didn't make sense in the movie was the haunted hay ride. It was a carnival attraction in Paradise's Spring Carnival. While it moved the plot along and led into the discovery of Smith's superhuman strength, it was out of place. The movie was based on a book; maybe it's better explained there.
Overall, the movie was good. If for nothing else, see it to oogle over Alex Pettyfer. When his character gets angry, his British accent comes through.