I hate to say it… but I’m gonna… “I’m too old for this”.

Or at least that’s what it feels like, because watching the science fiction / high school drama that is I Am Number Four was one of the most arduous experiences I’ve had since… well, The Hunger Games?
So, the cliché-ridden storyline follows a young man who is from another world, he looks like a human, except for when his limbs glow like searchlights. He is one of a handful of children of this world who can stop the evil Mogadorians, and this alien war comes to Earth in an effort to hunt him down. In the meantime, “John Smith” decides to go to High School and ends up meeting a girl.
Urk.
This film opens in the worst manner possible; our lead hero monologuing about stuff we have no comprehension of, places we will never see, and people we will never meet. It only goes off the deep end afterwards when he goes to High School. Where is Buffy when you need her?

Everything I have seen before, or at least everything leading up to the finale. A thick-skulled football quarterback bully who’s the boyfriend of our hero’s love interest, who’s father is the police chief, who both find themselves way over their heads. Or how about the nerdy kid who knows all about the aliens on Earth. I barely needed to watch this because it was so transparently obvious!
Yes so the abundance of CGI in the climax almost masked the redundancy of it all, but by then you don’t care! It is just young people running around with super soakers going “pew pew” at each other.
Its budget is television sized. The villains are laughably silly, talking in such funny accents that all threat is erased. To be honest as the film takes itself way too seriously, way too seriously, the villains are the only goofy and therefore entertaining thing here!

I don’t know, perhaps younger male audiences will enjoy it, but this is not what I call “film” calibre and I hope not too many people wasted cinema admission for it!