A 5ª Onda

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.

So this basically reminded me of Red Dawn. But I enjoyed it more. For me, Chloe carried the film. And they mix it up enough with action, adventure, and romance. To keep you entertained long enough.

I'm glad they didn't drag out the movie, but disappointed they aren't going to make the other 2 films related to the other books.

As a low-budget sci-fi flick, The Fifth Wave starts quite promisingly with a more logical continuation from the opening scenes of "Independence Day". The end of the world is nigh. An alien spacecraft has put itself into a threatening earth orbit (note: actually 'orbiting' - as a nod to science guys like me - rather than just inexplicably hanging there in the sky, as Douglas Adams once put it, "in much the same way that bricks don't").

The aliens are throwing calamity after calamity down at small-town America in 'waves': earthquakes; tidal surges; modified bird flu; and bombings.

Against this stressful backdrop, the ever-reliable Chloe Grace-Moretz ("Kick Ass"; "Let the Right One In") plays Cassie who after getting separated from her younger brother Sam (Zackery Arthur) faces the dangers of a cross-country Alabama trek to rescue him.

Like I said, quite a promising premise, and it flows quite nicely until the family get to a Fort Wilderness style sanctuary in the forest. There however the plot goes awry, with the aliens making a seemingly ridiculous strategic move.

Jaw-dropping dumbness now follows with a 'see-it-coming-from-a-mile-away' plot-twist casting Cassie onto her solo-mission, and the film declines into a rather poor 'Hunger-maze-giance' wannabe with Cassie torn between the affections of old crush Ben (Nick "Jurassic World" Robinson) and mysterious saviour Evan (Alex Roe). Much muscle-rippling and skinny-dipping ensues as Cassie oohs and aahs in a girlie fashion that erodes her kick-ass (no pun intended) characterization to date.

The director is J Blakeson.... no, me neither. This is only his second feature, and is a big ask.

The film rather obviously cues up a sequel: this is the first of a series of – apparently quite good – books by Rick Yancey, with the next in the series being called "The Infinite Sea". I don't think I will be rushing to the cinema to see the sequel, if it does happen.

A disappointing film that starts with real promise but then loses its way. Grace-Moretz really does deserve better. Nice animated Gif poster though!.

(Please visit http://bob-the-movie-man.com for the graphical version of this review, and to comment with your thoughts. Thanks).

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.

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".