I Am Number Four (PG-13)
Amblin; Disney Wiki; IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Wikia; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; Hulu; Movies Anywhere; Vudu; YouTube

This is a 2011 film based on a novel I haven't read. I didn't see the movie until 2024. It got mostly negative reviews, and I can understand that. It's not a great movie... but I also didn't think it was really bad. It was, you know, okay. It did take me awhile to get into it at all, and I never got super into it. But I don't feel like I wasted my time watching it.

So, there's this teenage alien from planet Lorien, whose real name we never learn (unless you consider a number to be a name, but in this case I don't). When he first meet him, he's called Daniel. He is one of nine special children from Lorien who were brought to Earth after their planet was invaded by aliens called Mogadorians. Each one has a number, and "Daniel" is Number Four. These children, when they come of age, develop special powers called "legacies". They're meant to fight the Mogs, but until they're ready, they remain in hiding, separate from each other. Actually, before we meet Number Four, we see Number Three being killed by Mogs. Then, after an incident in which Number Four is exposed as something other than human, he and his protector, Henri, move to a new town, and Daniel changes his name to John Smith. (Incidentally, I'm a bit surprised by the spelling of "Henri", because normally I think of that spelling being pronounced "on-ree", but in the movie it's just pronounced like Henry.)

Anyway, John befriends an outcast named Sam, who is bullied by a pack of jocks led by Mark James. Sam believes that his dad, who disappeared years ago, was abducted by aliens. John also befriends a budding photographer named Sarah (Dianna Agron), who becomes a love interest. Independent of all that, viewers see a mysterious teenage girl doing her own thing somewhere else, and it's not at all surprising when we eventually learn that she's one of John's people, Number Six. She joins John in fighting the Mogs, in the later part of the movie (and she's pretty badass). Um... there are other things I should probably mention. Like, the Mogs have some scary CGI monsters working for them, but another CGI creature ends up protecting Number Four from the monsters. (He had no idea of this creature's true form until late in the movie, but it shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone.) And... Number Four and Number Six will have to track down the other remaining people like them, but that's a whole other story for a sequel... which never happened.

Well, I think I've left out enough details, and also provided at least enough details. The movie has its flaws, but overall I thought it was, as I said before, okay. (But I'd totally understand other viewers not thinking it was okay at all.)