Plot: Four waves of increasingly deadly alien attacks have left most of Earth decimated. Cassie is on the run, desperately trying to save her younger brother.
Rating: 7/10
I’m really still quite surprised dystopian / YA is making it on to the big screen. During the vampire craze the only vampires that really made it onscreen was the bunch from Twilight. I guess that speaks as highly for the content of the YA adoptions as it does of its fans. It’s been shaky at times but that was clearly either because the movie was done so badly (like Vampire Academy, but since that has become my guilty pleasure I won’t say too much), or the fans couldn’t really care very much (Beautiful Creatures, which I won’t watch, because I hated the book)
Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb has been really mean to this movie. It has extremely low ratings on both and I can’t understand why after seeing it. It has a few predictable plot twists and feels like it stole some ideas from other franchises, but it is generally a good film and I found a number of things to enjoy about it.
Chloë Grace Moretz plays lead female character Cassie Sullivan – a teenage girl thrust into the apocalypse when her biggest problem the previous day was catching the attention of Ben Parish (Nick Robinson), high school jock and general cutie. You are treated to a series of flashbacks that aim to tell you what happened to earth, who the extraterrestrial force might be, and what the 5th Wave will be – the last in a series of waves that will succeed in wiping out humanity.
The flashbacks does its job, but as with all Dystopian works it can’t possibly hope to cover enough to even make sense. It is not terrible offensive though, because you end up understanding what’s important and rooting for your main characters.
“I am young innocent child and you must protect me!” – every YA child, EVER
The 5th Wave has what it needs – the young and vulnerable character that needs to be protected – Sammy Sullivan, played by Zachary Arthur (at least they didn’t choose Art Parkinson AGAIN), the loving parental figures that will ten-to-one be meeting their maker, the stern military figure who you can never be sure to trust or not, played by Liev Schreiber and even the sad love triangle (though not annoying in the first installment, but definitely going to escalate moving forwards).
The Aliens inside a human tricking you into trusting them is really the Host style. It also has some links to the Hunger Games and many other dystopian novels, but the story isn’t bad and even vaguely interesting. It does seem a bit lazy from the authors to constantly choose glob-aliens – give them tentacles or something but make it more interesting.
I did enjoy the cast though. Chloë Grace Moretz is always a win according to me, since she’s eternally loved as our Kick-Ass heroine. I am not overly fond of children in movies, but Zachary Arthur didn’t annoy me too much and that is always a compliment. I also thought that Nick Robinson was quite good, and genuinely looked like a teenager – they get so preposterous with casting grown men as teenage boys sometimes. I did enjoy Liev Schreiber, who plays the cold military man very well. Evan Walker, played by Alex Roe, was well… well. Let’s just say I really enjoyed every scene he was in. Goodness. It is also pretty great seeing Maika Monroe in here and thoroughly unrecognizable to boot. Let me know if you spotted her!
… and another one
The 5th Wave won’t be the greatest film of 2016 or the greatest dystopian adaption (which remains with the Hunger Games), but it doesn’t deserve all the tongue thrashing it received. I hope the rest of the series is made because I will watch it if it does. I am definitely going to give the books a try, and give you some feedback on it!
Have you seen the film? Any thoughts?
Life of this city girl 