Since I Am Number Four fell into the realm of Disney distributed fantasy movies for youths, it's no surprise that former Yes rocker Trevor Rabin wrote its score. The composer's career has been dominated by such topics from Disney and its affiliates over the previous few years, highlighted by Race to Witch Mountain, G-Force, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and perhaps the best recognized of the lot, the National Treasure movies. The one thing that absolutely anybody can say about Rabin's methodology for these films is that it's consistent, a very reliable throwback to 1990's Media Ventures mannerisms and Rabin's own stagnant style that undoubtedly continues to appeal to filmmakers like Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay. For film score collectors, hearing these Rabin adventure scores of the late 2000's is akin to an eerie throwback to the 1990's. Whereas the style of Hans Zimmer's other Media Ventures/Remote Control associates has evolved through the years, Rabin continues to unashamedly write in that same original mould. In fact, it almost seems as though he's decided not to follow the stand procedure of purchasing updated samples for his programming uses in the last ten years, because some of the exact same ones continue to persist. In many ways, for a listener nostalgic for film music of the 1990's, there's something refreshing about Rabin's refusal to change his basic foundations even fifteen years after that sound debuted. Race to Witch Mountain in particular was a score that paraded the best of Rabin's tried and tested formula in 2009, and while I Am Number Four dutifully takes the same musical route, the 2011 score is less cohesively developed. There are constants that are indeed maintained in I Am Number Four, starting with Rabin's usual blend of a well-balanced orchestra and his various electronic arrays. Choral effects range from generic background synthetics to light majesty in the foreground that is most likely sampled as well but at least resurrects the appeal of Deep Blue Sea.

A combination of light keyboarding and electric guitar, sometimes with the help of a mid-range woodwind solo, sooths with the usual theme of character development (introduced in "Who We Are"). A bolder power anthem-like identity for the butt-whooping action is less pronounced in I Am Number Four but does exist relatively hidden within both "Hit Me With Your Lumen" and "Commander Mog Explodes." Standard Rabin chord progressions of extremely easy and rather simplistic orchestrations are also familiar players. Slapped percussive rhythms with wailing guitar, static full ensemble thematic flair, and generic tonal grandeur make themselves heard in the final third. Rabin does try to infuse some John Powell-style of rampant string movement for action sequences, most notably in "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Forest Fight." A little Mark Mancina comes into play during the heavily looped sequences with pitch-defying sound effects. Most of these techniques come together in "VI to the Rescue," something of a summary cue of 1990's blockbuster music. Aside from the fact that nothing in the score for I Am Number Four really attempts to stretch into new territory, there is also some lingering dissatisfaction with the handling of the themes. As mentioned before, Rabin's main anthem for the heroic element only reveals itself in a small handful of performances late in the score, with no interesting foreshadowing. Also, his idea for the main character and his love interest is pretty (especially in "Getting to Know Sarah," a definite easy listening highlight of the score) but not very intelligent. It is based upon a series of five-note phrases that betrays the possibility of writing a theme of four notes for the lead character and one of six for his alien counterpart. Perhaps such detail is too much to ask from a Rabin score, for despite the inherent simplicity and familiarity in everything you encounter in I Am Number Four, the music surprisingly continues to function just as adequately as it did more than a decade prior. Don't expect anything on the relatively well presented 44-minute album to add substance to an existing Rabin collaboration, but predictability sometimes does have virtues of comfort, and here those benefits barely scratch out a third star for the score's rating.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download