MOVIE – Imagine the story of The Last of Us filmed with a supermodel-like young guy instead of good old Joel. Got it? OK. Now imagine the prequel story of Halo, with kids, who are too young and without actual aliens to shoot. Shall we go on? Then let’s add a bit of Twilight-like romance and a lot of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. Mix it all together and forget to add anything scary or reminding you actual aliens. That’s what The 5th wave is about.

Usually, I am not against low budget movies. I have once seen a Hungarian vampire movie, where the producers ran out of money because they were auditioning too many nude women, which cost too much money, so the director told the whole movie himself, as a talking head on the movie screen. It was rather funny.

I also like theater stage plays, where ordinary looking actors play the actual aliens, monsters, gangsters or other weird guys. It’s part of the art of the theater.

But when we are watching a bona fide sci-fi action flick where the aliens attack the Earth, and we cannot actually see anything “alien” – that’s pretty lame to say the least. But let’s not get ahead ourselves…

What are those “waves”?

As explained in the young adult, science fiction novel, written by Rick Yancey, the Waves are planned attacks used by the Others in their attempt to take over planet Earth. I don’t want to spoil all of them, let’s just say, that we have EMP (electromagnetic pulse) strikes, literal “waves” from tsunamis, which flood coastal cities, a virus, killing a vast amount of population (“pestilence” ) and infiltrated “silencer” aliens who are killing people by sharpshooting them. And of course, the “5^th wave” that I won’t spoil, how it is done.

While we can see some pretty impressive disaster scenes (especially during the flood and the EMP strikes), the other waves are either pretty weak or downright ridiculous. During the pestilence scene, we cannot see any effects of the virus on people, just some standing crowd, and doctors with a mask on them. OK, I don’t expect some Resident Evil-like zombies or rotten corpses, but, at least, SOME signs of a deadly virus could have been shown on human flesh.

“Alien,” my arse…

Sharpshooter aliens aren’t better either. They look act and speak like any human, they aren’t scary or unique at all. At least, their voice could have been altered, or – I don’t know – maybe they could have green goo-like saliva, or whatever, which makes them scary and… alien.

There are also some big WTF moments (or rather a “wannabe” WTF moments) in roughly the second part of the movie, where some aliens are demasked, but you won’t spot the real difference about them either. (Other than one of the alien being a kung-fu champion.)

What’s even worse is that we are entirely missing the chill factor of those aliens. I am aware that this book is aimed at teens, and I am not expecting the same level of horror or scare-factor of the famous Ridley Scott movie, The Thing, Species, or even Invasion of the Body Snatchers, what we can see in this film is entirely devoid of the essential suspense regarding the aliens. Without exaggeration, I am positive, that even Tim Burton’s dark comedy, Mars Attacks! had scarier aliens!

The keyword is “second-rate.”

While the visuals, CGI effects are OK (nothing special to talk about though), the actors are pretty average at best. Chloë Grace Moretz, who is playing the main character, Cassie Sullivan is either rather bland or overplaying her character. Of course, the stupid screenplay doesn’t help her acting skills either.

Alex Roe is the typical “looking too good can’t act if his life depended on it” kind supermodel kind of actor, and I am sorry to say, but kid actors are pretty bad in this movie too. The only decent performance comes from Liev Schreiber, who plays Colonel Vosch. It’s a shame that his talent gets wasted in such a weak movie.

Yes, a better script would probably help a lot here, but overall the acting level in this movie is pretty low.

The waves should have washed it away

It’s hard to recommend The 5^th wave to anyone. I didn’t read the novel, but as far as I know, it’s not bad at all, so I expect its readers to be disappointed as well. True sci-fi movie fans should stay away as it’s as anticlimactic, low on special effects, lacking primary scare factor and badly acted as it gets. As it’s a “teen” sci-fi movie, perhaps it could be suitable for the younger audience. Young girls, of the romantic kind perhaps…

-BadSector-