Die 5. Welle

We had The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, St Elmo's Fire, The Goonies to name but a few. Defining moments in movies, defining teenage angst, growing pains and young love and loves lost. Films that stand up today, not just for nostalgia's sake but because of solid acting, amazing characters and good stories.

I despair for the drivel that our millennial's have to endure today in the name of cinema. If you've grown up on good films through the years then you want to avoid The Fifth Wave. Encourage your young-lings to watch something else.

Chloe maybe a good actress, but she couldn't drag the film from the mire of this cliché driven plot line with shallow characters and an awfully banal story of an alien plot to take over the Earth in as seemingly clueless manner as possible.

The reason to watch this is for Cassie's performance. The reason not to watch it is the rest of the movie. It starts promising. An alien ship orbiting and people wondering what is all that about. A massive EMP wipes out all electrical connections (Wave 1). A flood (Wave 2). Bird Flu (Wave 3). The aliens are depopulating the planet. The few survivors who were immune to the bird flu gather and the military shows up to take them to a military base. Through luck, Cassie misses getting on the bus. By then it becomes very predictable. Cassie still intends to reunite with her brother, who was on the bus, and that is the rest of the story.

Saw 'The 5th Wave' because the concept was a good one, there was interest in how survival, alien invasion and teenage romance would work together and because there is talent in the cast. Was determined not to let my apprehension, as to whether 'The 5th Wave' would execute its good concept well (having seen so many potential wastes recently), get the better of me.

It is a shame that after genuinely wanting to like it, not with the intention to hate it or want to, that 'The 5th Wave' was yet another potential waste, executing its good idea very ordinarily. Not one of the worst cases but one of the most infuriating ones, not irredeemably awful but the cons outweigh the pros and the cons are hardly big in size. It is not that it didn't try, to me it tried too hard, executing its elements underwhelmingly and they just don't go together.

There are a few good things. Chloe Grace Moretz gives it everything, a very committed performance and comes off well compared to everything else. In fact, a good deal of the cast are game.

Production design has some atmosphere and while the effects are variable a few are above so-so, credit is due for not overusing and abusing them that it became a CGI-fest. The start does intrigue.

Conversely, the camera work and editing were wanting, being far too drab and hasty-looking rather than dynamic. Other effects are artificial-looking. The direction showed someone not at ease with the material and one finding it difficult to control it. While Moretz and the lead cast are game, the children are inept.

The dialogue is clunky and excessively cheesy, particularly in the teenage/romantic scenes. It was the story execution that was particularly underwhelming about 'The 5th Wave'. There was not enough at stake for the survival/end-of-the-world element to work, it was too predictable, a lot could be seen from a mile away, and urgency and tension were missing. The alien-invasion parts suffered from a lack of thrills, no suspense and less than menacing villains. The teenage/romantic elements are just awkward and bog the film down, placed inappropriately at times too.

On top of neither element being executed well, they don't go well together, coming over as a muddled jumble of tones and cobbled together storytelling, with every recycled, fatigued cliché imaginable with nothing new done with either. The twists were obvious and didn't really feel like twists, the big one not excepted. The characters were generally bland with their development at best sketchy. The ending is sheer nonsense and impossible to take seriously. Also have felt that open-ended ones hinting at a follow-up are rather risky in case that falls through, watching 'The 5th Wave' did nothing to change my mind on this.

In conclusion, not awful but there are a lot of issues here. 3/10 Bethany Cox

For the first time i am writing a review for a movie. If you are not under 15 years old you should stay away from this movie because its just a really bad movie with some visual effects. The movie was looking good at first 10 minutes but after that everything in the movie started to seems stupid. Ending scene was the worst part of it. Scenario and most of the scenes in the movie is just disaster.

This film tells the story of a young girl who fights to survive and to reunite with her brother, after mysterious alien attacks on Earth by various methods.

"The 5th Wave" is a bit different from other alien attach films because there is no widespread battles in urban areas. There is not even an alien looking creature in sight! That keeps mystery alive and suspense going. The first few waves unfold quite quickly, and the fifth wave takes time to develop. Just when things seem to be a certain way, there are multiple plot twists happening together which makes the film even more interesting. The guy playing Evan Walker is very handsome, I hope to see more of him in future films. Another good thing is that "The 5th Wave" is not preachy at all, unlike a similar recent film "Tomorrowland". I enjoyed watching "The 5th Wave".