Some movies are popcorn pictures

“I Am Number Four” is an Excedrin Extra Strength movie. I could feel the migraine coming within the first five minutes as a jungle hut is invaded by characters we can’t see, fighting wonders we don’t care about, and the entire screen explodes in blue light, red fireballs and eardrum-punishing noise.

So would be having two guys burst into your bedroom with an air horn and a couple of highway flares, its much exciting. You might also like it, I doubt you’d want to pay $12 for the privilege.

Some will, though, particularly in the Young Adult set. “I Am Number Four” is the movie of a popular novel about an exiled alien teen being chased by invading alien men. He stays on the move with his pretend father, regularly changing names and high schools to elude his enemies. But then he meets a “normal” girl. And since his race mates for life, he falls hard.

If it sounds familiar, it should — it’s basically “Twilight,” with ray guns. The crucial difference is that like the best popular authors, Stephenie Meyer never condescended to her audience or her material; she believed what she wrote.

You get the feeling, though, that the people behind this project believed only in its marketing potential. And why not? One of the original novel’s co-authors was James Frey, the desperate, disgraced auto-faux-ographer of “A Million Little Pieces.”

The nasty aliens are fun — they have long black coats, wild Maori-style tattoos and a withering contempt for the soft sweet sickness that is American society. If it weren’t for their crimson gills, you’d almost think they were grad students.

But Alex Pettyfer — a child actor turned model turned self-satisfied hunk — isn’t much except blond hair and good cheekbones as our hero. He takes his shirt off a lot, but Taylor Lautner has nothing to worry about — except what he’s going to do after those “Twilight” movies end.

Meanwhile the rest of the cast particularly Dianna Agron of “Glee” as Pettyfer’s new sweetheart — is even blander. The few actors who are better than that make their exits early, or appear too late — like Teresa Palmer, another alien but one with a broad Aussie accent and a taste for motorcycles and tight leather.

Palmer’s a welcome addition but she’s too tough for this movie the effects are grade-school silly (Pettyfer shoots blue light from his hands like he’s clutching a fistful of glow sticks) and there’s no real threat. Stab one of the evil aliens with a special knife and he just turns to ashes.

It’s too bad. Director D.J. Caruso did one wonderfully strange movie (“The Salton Sea”), one successful one (“Disturbia”) and one stupid one (“Eagle Eye”). He never has done one that was this dull before. Or this needlessly loud.

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