‘Four’ hunts down teens

REVIEW

‘I AM NUMBER FOUR’

Grade: C

Credits: Directed by D.J. Caruso and starring Alex Pettyfer and Teresa Palmer (above)

Rating: PG-13 (sexual content, language and some drug use)

Length: 1:48

The dawn of a ‘Twilight’-type series?

By Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

They’re young, they’re darned attractive, and their hands glow an eerie neon blue when they’re in trouble. And they’re in trouble a lot, because they’re being hunted.

They have superhuman strength, great hair and lips and wardrobes to die for.

And in “I Am Number Four,” they’re not vampires. Thank heavens.

Brit hunk Alex Pettyfer took an earlier shot at a franchise (“Alex Rider: Stormbreaker” didn’t work out), but he’s grown into a solid and quite interesting lead to build this potential sci-fi movie series around. He plays John, who is named Daniel when we first meet him. He’s one of the nine “gifted” children rescued from their planet, which was overrun by the same beastly boys who are hunting him to this day.

The nine were hidden away on Earth, with protectors. Daniel’s is named Henry (Timothy Olyphant, quite good). When their cover is blown in sunny surfside Florida, they flee to Paradise, Ohio, where Daniel becomes “John Smith.” Despite Henry’s protests, John refuses to lay low. He goes to high school. He falls for the hot photographer, Sarah (Diana Agron of TV’s “Glee”). He runs afoul of her bully-jock ex-boyfriend (Jake Abel).

Director D.J. Caruso (“Disturbia”) knows his action beats, and he stages some fierce fights in the third act.

But what works best are the high school moments — kids enforcing or trying to escape the social order, “puppy love” rearing its head.

Olyphant gives his father figure a wild-eyed edge.

As action films aimed at this audience go, “Number Four” falls midway between “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” and “Twilight” — edgier than “Jackson,” mockingly self-aware, but without the white-hot sexual tension of the vampire movies. And the subtext, that you shouldn’t waste your teen years on stupid risks because you’re needed “for a higher purpose,” makes this a franchise I won’t mind seeing progress to a second movie.