BEFORE: It's still July, but if I'm shooting for 300 films this year, then I'm 2/3 of the way there. I'm gearing up for the final push, the final hundred - if I can make it to the virtual round-the-world trip, it's going to feel like all downhill from there. 8 of my last 10 films were released in 2010 or 2011, so it kind of feels like I'm getting caught up, but the location-based chain's going to have some real classics in it.
Linking tonight is a little tough, because there are no real a-list stars in this film. So it's up to the Oracle of Bacon, which informs me that Teresa Palmer from this film was in "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler, who was also in "Funny People" with Seth Rogen. That's probably the best I can hope for.
THE PLOT: Aliens and their Guardians are hiding on Earth from intergalactic bounty hunters. They can only be killed in numerical order, and Number Four is next on the list.
AFTER: I just wasn't feeling this one tonight - it's based on a book, which I assume is aimed at the teen sci-fi market, but the story seemed very derivative of other things, almost familiar. When I saw the writing credits at the end, I recognized the names from watching 10 seasons of "Smallville", and that's when it hit me. This story isn't just like that show, it IS "Smallville", in all the ways that matter.
Check out the similarities - a hunky teen with powers that he has to work to control, various alien beings who track him and show up to kill him, strange alien artifacts that glow under certain conditions, meanwhile our hero tries to blend in at school and live like a normal earth teen. Doomed father figure? Check. Pet dog? Check. It's got everything but a stylized "S" on his chest.
So they merged Lana Lang + Chloe Sullivan into the girlfriend character, it's the same story at heart. Worse, it feels like it only tells part of the story, like one episode of a TV show. There's a big difference between setting up a sequel and only telling half of a story, and I feel like the latter is what happened here.
Jeez, don't waste my time with stories I feel like I've seen already.
Starring Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Dianna Agron, Callan McAuliffe, Kevin Durand.
RATING: 4 out of 10 fake IDs
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