The 5th Wave

I’d seen this movie advertised a while back and thought it looked good, interesting, something different. Also, it had Chloe Grace Moretz who is always good. So was I right to be optimistic?

The 5^th Wave is about alien invasion, at least that’s what it is supposed to be about. Aliens arrive over the US (always the US) in spacecraft that look like they’re from District 9. The 1^st wave sees them hit the Earth with an electromagnetic pulse that stops anything and everything electrical or mechanical. The 2^nd wave sees water used as coastal cities and islands are wiped out. The 3^rd wave is a mutated version of bird flu and the 4^th wave sees the aliens leave their spaceship and come to Earth in humans as a kind of parasite. The 5^th, and final wave, well, that would be telling.

Cassie, Chloe Grace Moretz, loses her family in the various waves, her parents die but her younger brother is taken by the military and she hunts him down. I’m not going to go into the ins-and-outs of things, mainly because it will give it away and, who knows, you might actually want to go and see it.

Personally I wouldn’t bother paying your hard earned cash on this film. Perhaps if you’re a teenage boy or girl you may enjoy it but anyone with half a brain will be bored and wondering how something so predictable got past any half-decent script review.

The problems are numerous and painful to see. Cassie has the sense to pick up an assault rifle near the start of the film yet doesn’t take anything else, no body armour, no further weapons, no supplies. They know that everything electrical and mechanical isn’t working yet no-one thinks to question it when the military turn up in vehicles, led by Liev Schrieber, with helicopters. The Others, as the aliens are known, look exactly like humans yet everyone seems fine trusting each other based on some brief conversations. And let’s not get onto why a man in his 30’s thinks it’s ok to get it on with a high school girl. Maybe the end of the world does that sort of thing.

Susannah Grant (Pocahontas, In Her Shoes), Akiva Goldsman (I Am Legend, A Beautiful Mind) and Jeff Pinker (Alias, Fringe) are on writing duties based on the novel by Rick Yancey. J Blakeson (The Descent, Pitch Perfect) takes directorial duties.

Ultimately, this is a flawed movie. The clues as to where it’s all going are many and obvious which renders the remainder of the film excruciating to watch. Oh, and they left it open for a sequel. Let’s hope the 6^th wave doesn’t arrive anytime soon.