How many of these young adult fiction books are there? Over the past few years we've had a plethora of books made into movies like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent and Twilight along with their sequels. As long as they make money at the box office, Hollywood shall continue to make them. Another adaptation in the long line of young adult fiction is The 5th Wave which starts off promisingly but then becomes another generic teenage film with a romance subplot and unconvincing action scenes.
Cassie Sullivan (Chloe Grace Moretz) is just a normal teenage girl living happily in Ohio with her father (Ron Livingston), mother (Maggie Siff) and brother, Sam (Zackary Arthur). Their lives change when aliens invade Earth. The aliens inflict wave after wave of attack: the 1st wave refers to electromagnetic pulses being disabled resulting in a loss of communication and transportation; the 2nd wave is a flurry of natural disasters; the 3rd wave is an airborne deadly virus transmitted by birds; the 4th wave is the alien species inhabiting humans like parasites; the 5th wave is alien domination. The adults are separated from the children and the US army led by Colonel Vosch (Liev Schreiber) is taking control of the situation, placing children in quarantine so they can assist in fighting the alien species. Cassie finds herself isolated from her peers and must fight her own battles.
The plot is tense and exciting but that's just for the first half an hour. Once the children have been separated from the adults, things become a bit stale. It doesn't help when there's sizable plot holes throughout the movie. The story then drifts off into a romantic subplot which was just as boring as the Twilight series. When the children are trained to fight the aliens, there's a sense that all excitement has dissipated. If the focus was on Cassie fighting her own battles and trying to find her brother then it would have made for a more exciting movie.
The director is J Blakeson and this is his second directorial effort after The Disappearance of Alice Creed in 2009. It might be another seven years until he is employed again for he has some learning to do. Some of those close-up shots of the actors with their foreheads not in the frame were annoying and several of the fight scenes were difficult to see as they were filmed in natural lighting at night!
Chloe Grace Moretz is developing into a terrific actress if she hasn't reached that level already. She is convincing as the teenager who must make her own decisions when her family is no longer around to support her. The two actors who play her love interests, Nick Robinson and Alex Roe, are both devilishly handsome but their roles could be played by any young, unknown Hollywood heartthrob. Liev Schreiber adds integrity to the production and can always be relied upon to hold the fort in the acting stakes.
There are quite a few clever ideas in this film but the execution could have been much better. If you're a fan of young adult fiction, you won't be too disappointed but for people who have seen many movies, there's nothing new which will cause you to leap for joy. The story sticks pretty much to the generic formula and doesn't reach any great heights. http://mlaimlai2.wix.com/magical-movie-review
