Film 20: The 5th Wave (2016)

This was the second movie I watched at the cinema this year. The only thing I knew about it going into it was that it was based on a book.

The 5th Wave is a movie that could have been good. It has an intriguing premise, but the whole experience is let down by a mix of weak dialogue, bad pacing and a poor use of cliches.

*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*

Like I said, the premise is interesting. Aliens known only as "The Others" arrive on earth, and slowly roll out waves of disasters meant to break down humanity; first they cut global power, second they cause massive tsunamis, and third they use birds to spread a disease and wipe out as many of the remaining people as possible. Unfortunately, we are presented this information through a montage and some voice-over from our main character, Cassie Sullivan (Chloe Moretz). We are overloaded with information in the first fifteen minutes because the movie decides to have a cold open to somewhere about a quarter of the way into the movie, and then play catch-up with itself. There could have been more time spent on the early waves, but those were of course just set up, the movie only wants to spend the opening few minutes on them because this is a movie about the fourth wave.

Yes, despite the name of the movie, it actually focuses primarily on the fourth wave, and only builds up to the idea of the fifth wave around two thirds of the way in. The army has apparently survived the waves, and comes to a camp of survivors where Cass and her father and brother have taken up residence. They take the children and explain to the adults that aliens can now inhabit and control human bodies. A series of circumstances leaves all the adults dead, Cass' brother in the hands of the army, and Cass herself on her own out in the woods. We finally get back to where we started about 39 minutes into the movie, so we finally have enough information to actually get the movie going.

Unfortunately, this is also where the movie begins to mimic other young adult-targeted movies and become a pile of tired cliches. We get a new male character (played by Alex Roe) who rescues Cass, and of course ends up as her romantic interest. Not only that, turns out he's actually a human-alien hybrid, sent to Earth by the aliens to behave as a sleeper agent of sorts, but of course he goes rogue because he's fallen for Cass (literally, she causes him to believe in love). The army makes soldiers out of the children, and part of the movie follows another character, Ben Parish (Nick Robinson) and his squad. Here we get the plot twist that the army is controlled by the aliens (surprise, surprise).

The plot twists are bad enough, but most egregious of all is the third act. It's more tired cliches and boring action sequences, but on top of that the movie makes the aliens look completely incompetent. We find out that the military was training the child soldiers in order to kill the last civilians; their goal is apparently to wipe out humanity, but they do so in the least efficient way possible. They're supposed to be all-powerful and intent on taking over the planet, but their military base is destroyed by a couple of teenagers. It just takes what little intrigue there was left in the movie and does away with it for some illogical action scenes.

The Verdict: In a world with Maze Runner, Hunger Games and Divergent -style young adult films, The 5th Wave manages to be the weakest I've seen yet. It's not worth a watch; it's plot is nonsense mixed with forced romance, its dialogue and characterisation are both laughable.

Rating: 3.5/10