Tuesday, February 22, 2011

I AM NUMBER FOUR

Review: I Am Number Four
2 stars (out of 5)
By R. Kurt Osenlund

Don't Alex Pettyfer, Dianna Agron and Teresa Palmer look pretty up there on the screen? Don't Pettyfer's glowing palms provide nice spotlights for everyone's poreless complexions? Doesn't “I Am Number Four” strike you as the latest installment of the “Fantastic Four” franchise? Because not since Jessica Alba went bottle-blond as Susan Storm, and Chris Pine went literal with his flamer tendencies, has a hero-driven genre film been more superficially concocted. Casting for talent ended with the hiring of Timothy Olyphant, who, at 42, is regarded as an old man in this Kiddie-City production. The rest of the cast may just as well have sent their headshots to the set, as one actor can't hide his English accent worth a shilling, another wields staggeringly stupid one-liners like concrete boomerangs, and another plays damn-near every scene like a mouse in need of Metamucil. They're all great on the retina, as are the polished visual effects, but a moviegoer can't live by window-dressing alone, and this is a brain-in-hibernation, fingers-in-the-ears flick, through and through.


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