Tag: d.j. caruso

Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey had mixed feelings about “I Am Number Four” on several counts. Here’s an excerpt: “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. The issues of the heart have shifted from the undead to the otherworldly, and the battles have been amped up considerably, but its fate still rests on the basic boy-meets-girls story, which frankly could use a bit more bite. Alex Pettyfer, another lean and comely Brit with moody charisma in the Robert Pattinson vein, and sugary soft Dianna Agron (“Glee’s” head Cheerio) are our star-crossed high school sweethearts John and Sarah. She’s grown up in the small town of Paradise, Ohio, and poses the film’s burning question, ...

D.J. Caruso has directed Shia LeBeouf in “Disturbia” and Al Pacino in “Two for the Money,” but he had some especially ambitious plans for 20-year-old Alex Pettyfer in “I Am Number Four,” the sci-fi action movie that opens Friday. “I didn’t do much research, but D.J. made me watch films like ‘Close Encounters’ and ‘Rebel Without a Cause.’ We really wanted to capture the vulnerability”  of his character, John Smith. “Number Four,” with a  script written by “Smallville” duo Alfred Gough and Miles Millar and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s” Marti Noxon, presents Pettyfer as Smith, an Earth-bound alien who is being hunted down by some malevolent enemies in bad need of dental work. The film is based on a “memoir” of the same title by the author Pittacus Lore; we are assured that the stories are just a retelling of actual events — although we have ...