Trailer Wednesday: Paranormal Activity 2, I Am Number Four

After tackling a couple Oscar hopefuls last week on Trailer Wednesday, I couldn’t justify posting the second (longer and even better) “True Grit” trailer, so on to more mainstream stuff. We finally have a full trailer for “Paranormal Activity 2” for those who were sucked in by last year’s surprise hit and want more. Second, the teaser for sci-fi teen action movie, “I Am Number Four.”

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Paranormal Activity 2

When a small-budget horror film gets a sequel and a new director takes over and the studio begins to try capitalizing on the success of the original indie effort, it’s a turn-off. At the same time, the original was insanely creepy and I definitely can’t blame anyone with their eye on this one. The director reigns go from Oren Peli, who’s off making some kind of Area 51 film, to Tod Williams, director of “The Door in the Floor.”

The premise follows an entire family (I believe related to Katie in the original film), who believe their house is being broken into, so they set up security cameras only to find out the truth ain’t so simple. Let the people getting dragged around and babies doing weird shit commence. The film is gearing up for a release on October 22, so the goal has clearly been to concentrate the promotional efforts on these next couple weeks to shove people in theaters.

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I Am Number Four

Based on the book by James Frey and Jobie Hughes, “I Am Number Four” is a Michael Bay/Steven Spielberg produced sci-fi action film from DreamWorks about nine aliens that come to Earth as infants when their planet is destroyed to hide from their alien persecutors who look to hunt them down. The evil aliens must kill them in order, however. The first three are dead. Number Four (Alex Pettyfer) is next.

If director D.J. Caruso makes some waves with this film, he ought to become the next sought-after director. “Eagle Eye” and “Disturbia” though not fantastic or highly original, were both highly entertaining, attention-holding and well-paced. The cast has some definite future stars too. Pettyfer originally starred as British kid spy Alex Rider in “Stormbreaker” based on the Anthony Horowitz book and will appear also next spring in “Beastly” with Vanessa Hudgens. His co-star is “Glee” beauty Dianna Agron and another alien is played by Teresa Palmer who co-starred in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” this summer. Timothy Olyphant (“Live Free or Die Hard”) plays Number Four’s mentor, a role originally given to Sharlto Copley of “District 9” fame.

The teaser isn’t much, but so far, so good. “Number Four” comes out on Feburary 18, 2011.