Movie Review: The 5th Wave
The 5th Wave is the first in a trilogy of books written by Rick Yancey, that have now been adapted for the screen; the third book is actually not being published until May of this year. The movie adaptation of the first book was nothing new or ground-breaking, but will still manage to hold your attention for it's almost 2-hour runtime.
Cassie Sullivan (Chloe Grace Moretz) was a normal high school girl when the 1st wave hit: the Others, a group of aliens who want the Earth for themselves (but not its inhabitants), sent an electromagnetic pulse that took away all of the power and electricity on the planet. The 2nd wave was earthquakes and tsunamis; the 3rd, the avian bird flu; and in the 4th, some of the adult survivors were murdered by the Others who were already on the planet. The Others take the form of human beings, so it's impossible to know if someone is human or an Other, too. Cassie, her father, and her little brother leave their house and go to a survivor campsite, but soon, all of the children are taken away on buses, and Cassie and her brother get separated. Cassie must find him, and her journey to get to the army base where he was taken may be more dangerous than she originally thought.
Most of the actors here aren't that famous (at least not yet), but you'll recognize Moretz, Ron Livingston as her father, and Nick Robinson (The Kings of Summer, Jurassic World) as a high school crush of Cassie's. Part of the film was a bit predictable; there's a twist about 2/3 of the way into the movie that a friend predicted from the very beginning, but some of it was not, and it reminded me of Walking Dead lite meets The Host, since we were dealing with aliens rather than zombies.
Yes, see this movie. The film kept me entertained the whole time, even though some of the love scenes (yes, this is a teen movie, still ...) were a little cheesy. I'm curious to learn more about the Others in the next movie, The Infinite Sea, provided that it will be made; Bustle.com says "basically, The 5th Wave would have to majorly tank at the box office to destroy plans for a cinematic series," so hopefully that doesn't happen. I would think fans of Moretz would want to see this film, as well as other dystopian movie fans, so I hope it does well at the box office so that the second and third books in the trilogy will be brought to the big screen as well.
The 5th Wave is in theaters today, January 22nd, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 112 minutes. 3.5 stars out of 5.
