“I am Number Four” is based on the tween novel of the same name by Pittacus Lore. Lore, as the dust jacket describes him, is a 1,000-year-old alien who has come to Earth to tell stories as a warning to humanity of a gathering extraterrestrial threat. Lore, it turns out, is really James Frey. Yes, that James Frey. Turns out Oprah owes us yet another apology.

John Smith (a charismaless Alex Pettyfer) is running scared. Ruthless killers are on the hunt and unless the teenager continually alters his identity and moves from town to town, he will surely be killed.

But John isn’t your average adolescent. He and his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant) are some of the last members of a nearly extinct alien race, hiding out on Earth from the forces that obliterated their home world. In Paradise, Ohio, John thinks he might have lost his pursuers and finally found true love (Dianna Agron). But just as the fugitive begins to settle into his new life, he discovers that he is neither as safe — nor as powerless — as he believes.

Hollywood is so anxious for the next big franchise to replace “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” that they are throwing every multibook sci-fi/fantasy series they can find at the screen in the desperate hope that something — anything — sticks.

This ain’t it.

The profoundly unfortunate side effect of this position is that these films are never self-contained or autonomously complete. They assume a caravan of sequels at the expense of the individual narratives. The initial films skirt character development, pose far more questions than they answer, and elucidate no back story because they operate on the fundamentally arrogant presumption that they will have plenty more opportunities to do so later on.

More often than not, after a dismal box office performance, the hoped-for sequels are canceled, and few viewers ever revisit the originals, because of their inability to stand alone. Such is the case here.

It’s not just that “I am Number Four” is bad — it’s just plain silly. For a guy who knows he’s next on a very short hit list, John sure doesn’t act concerned. His character habitually does the opposite of what basic self-preservation would dictate, all in the name of an exciting plot. This is extraordinarily slothful writing.

One thing is for sure — alien teenagers are exactly the same as their human counterparts. This may make them appealing to their target demographic, but it certainly doesn’t imbue them with a necessary sense of “other.”

In fact, the aliens in “I am Number Four” toss around their origins and how they got here so casually that they might as well be describing growing up in Poughkeepsie. There is no sense of wonder, awe or otherness whatsoever (aside, of course, from those magnificent telekinetic abilities — abilities so cool they don’t remotely deserve to be in a movie this dumb).

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