Teen Alien Superhero seeks Normal life:I am Number Four - Official Trailer [HD]

All the while I was watching this well-meaning latest effort from DJ Caruso(The Salton Sea), I kept fighting the impression that I was watching an expanded version of Smallville.

Alex Pettyfer (who formerly played teen spy Alex Rider) is John smith (yeah, they went there), a seemingly normal teen who is actually one of the last of a special breed of aliens fleeing persecution from a more warlike species (yeah, they went there, too) he has moved from city to city under the guidance and protection of his alien compatriot, the more snappily named Henri (Deadwood's Timothy Olyphant) who's pretty handy with a sword as we soon find out.

Enter Sarah (Diana Agron), the young outsider at the high school where Smith ends up becoming the love interest, and therefore, a problem in the Henri's eyes, given that the bad guys' arrival on the scene is imminent, since they have picked up his "scent."

But they're not the only ones in search of Smith. He is fourth in line out of nine "specials" that the warlike race wants, and they've already dispatched numbers One through Three, hence the "Number Four" of the title. The thing is Number Six (Ozzie Teresa Palmer) is also on the scene, and is trying desperately to rendezvous with our hero.

There's also a geek (Callan McCauliffe, last seen in the teen romance Flipped), who has some moments but the movie just isn't a compelling whole. Love conquers all, of course, and the cast collectively tries, but the film passes without any significant emotional attachment to any of these characters or their predicament. The marauding aliens are essentially stock types, devoid of intelligence but oddly funny in their brutishness.

I Am Number Four is destined to be merely the latest in a long line of youth-oriented films.