Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2011

The reason this flashy, witless, Michael Bay-produced action/adventure/romance/sci-fi/teen drama/superhero/monster movie manages to cram in so much is that it’s cobbled together from the best bits of a dozen better movies. Mainly Twilight, substituting moody teenage aliens for moody teenage vampires. Yet still it fails. Mysterious hunk (of wood) Alex Pettyfer, the new guy in school, is really the fourth of nine surviving members of a vague, faraway genocide, and these cartoonish bad-guy aliens are hunting them down and knocking them off in order. Numbers One through Three have been taken care of. The barrier this represents to a little inter-species whoopee with the cute, Sensitive Local Girl (Dianna Agron) will seem familiar. And how about those laser-shooting palms of his? Ick. There are a lot of bloodless battles and CG explosions, interspersed with some cliché-ridden, mangled dialogue, but scant coherence. There’s no back story (that would involve writing), and the acting is negligible (except for Timothy Olyphant). The most amusing part of this sluggish, cheap-looking mess is at the end when it shamelessly and somewhat optimistically sets up a sequel or two. Don’t hold your breath.