The 5th Wave (2016)

Humans try to survive as aliens attack in The 5th Wave

As young adult novel adaptations dominated the box office for a while it seems the hype is dying down. If filmmakers continue to give audiences bland, lackluster adaptations the trend will continue to fall until the genre becomes obsolete.

The story follows Cassie Sullivan as she goes from normal girl going to parties to a girl fighting for survival as she tries to reunite with her brother after aliens invade planet earth. The writing is awful and the direction is not much better while most of the effects look lame considering today's technology.

The main focus of the story are those who are sixteen or younger as most of the adults are one of the "Others". Chloe Grace Moretz plays Cassie and this film is a waste of her talents. Cassie lost her mother during the third wave and her father during the fourth. As the fifth wave is about to begin Cassie fights to reunite with her little brother.

The rest of the talented ensemble include Liev Schreiber, Maria Bello and Ron Livingston and while they give good performances their talents are wasted as well. Nick Robinson and Alex Roe play Ben and Evan respectively and while those characters are important to the book's storyline, in the film they are reduced to love interests. Evan especially is incredibly boring. There is no way to fight off the alien invaders. They are set to destroy mankind. Evan is the only alien host with a conscience and it's all because of Cassie. The novel had two sequels and here's the film doesn't continue this story. If it does, the story needs to improve and fast.

In this case, the film adaptation is a definite skip. Stick to reading the novel.

The 5th Wave
(2.5/5 stars)
Written by: Susannah Grant, Akiva Goldsmith, and Jeff Pinker
Directed by: J. Blakeson
Starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Alex Roe
Running time: 112 minutes