I Am Number Four 2011

David Germain, Associated Press: The action tale I Am Number Four is mostly familiar stuff, presenting the latest teen outsider coming into possession of his latent superpowers just in time to battle evil forces intent on world chaos. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: Honestly, the god-awful, no-budget, grade-Z 1959 potboiler Teenagers From Outer Space had more integrity than does this piece of militaristically oppressive, micromanaged tripe. Read more

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: Strip away the uninspired mythology, and I Am Number Four is just your average high school movie with below-average drama. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: They're young, they're attractive and they glow neon blue when they're hunted. Which is often. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: "I Am Number Four" leaves plenty of room for sequels. Here's hoping. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Really, everything in I Am Number Four is recognizable from many past films. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: "I Am Number Four" is like a good episode of "Smallville": You may feel a bit silly watching it if you're past high-school age, but you just might have a good time. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Mostly "I Am Number Four'' is a pokey, pretty, predictable romance in which the boy is a shy extraterrestrial with secret powers and a royal lineage - your classic study-hall daydream - and the girl is a gentle alt-goddess. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Producers Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg deploy an arsenal of noisy special effects to demonstrate the invaders' high-tech superiority, which makes Olyphant's inability to breach an Internet firewall look pretty silly. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "I Am Number Four" has more than a whiff of number two about it... Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Granted, I Am NumberFour is a little better and makes loads more sense than Eagle Eye, Caruso's most recent vehicle for comely young actors in peril. But neither one has the sass and pluck of Disturbia. Watch that instead. Read more

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News: A polished but unremarkable science-fiction adventure, I Am Number Four is the kind of movie you enjoy while it's in front of you but soon forget about. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: The sci-fi-teen romance I Am Number Four is witless, insultingly derivative, muddy-looking, and edited in the hammering epileptic style that marks so many films produced, as this one is, by Michael Bay. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: Perhaps February's recent history as a movie "dumping ground" has me feeling overly generous, but "I Am Number Four" was an enjoyable romp. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: A high-school movie with a sci-fi twist ultimately fumbles away a golden opportunity to give youth conflicts an added dimension. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: "I Am Number Four," the appealing new kid-on-the-teen-angst block, reverberates with much of the same dark combustible mix of action and romance that's been fueling the "Twilight" vampire mega-franchise for a while now. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Pettyfer - a child actor turned model turned self-satisfied hunk - isn't much except blond hair and good cheekbones as our hero. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: I Am Number Four's CGI sequences are murky and dark, its performances negligible, its script genuinely inept. There is, I should note, a puppy, which arguably keeps the film this side of completely unbearable, but just barely. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: A Superman-come-lately tale of puppy love, extraordinary powers and puberty that's duller than a chalkboard and less powerful than an extraneous Jonas brother. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: For all of its homicidal aliens and toothy beasts, "I Am Number Four" did contain one element that genuinely unsettled me: the line "produced by Michael Bay." Nooooooo! Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Tapping into the same vein of teen melodrama that runs through the Twilight franchise, I Am Number Four hurls a moody adolescent from outer space into the halls of a smalltown American high school. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: What we have here is a witless attempt to merge the "Twilight" formula with the Michael Bay formula. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It is atrociously bad, basically. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Caruso aims for flashy fun and hits the target. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "I Am Number Four" delivers none of the spectacle of a competent sci-fi film, none of the emotion of an effective teen romance and none of the giggles of a kitsch fiasco. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Say this for I Am Number Four: It's blessedly free of any original sins. Instead, they're all copied. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: The movie version of I Am Number Four is a blatant, cynical pitch for an unearned franchise, made by people who seem to think the words "bestseller" and "young adult" are enough to guarantee a Harry Potter-like box office payout. It's not. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: The door is left wide open for a sequel, but it's hard to imagine there'll be much call for it. Read more

Scott Bowles, USA Today: A cookie-cutter action film that hopes to stand on the shoulders of Twilight and Spider-Man but plays like Spider-lite. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: The pic's stumbling block is its inability to convince us we're watching someone extraordinary. Read more

Nick Schager, Village Voice: Nothing but a million little pieces from prior superhero series and the Twilight saga. Read more

Sean O'Connell, Washington Post: The young "Four" cast appears to have been plucked from an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue - which isn't an issue until you realize that the characters they're playing are about as thin as the pages in that Gen-Y fashion Bible. Read more