The 5th Wave is yet another YA film and surprisingly this is a mighty checklist of everything you've already seen from this genre. But as its own thing, it manages to find its own themes. The problem is how inevitable the clichés are, how it unable to go through its own direction. It has to follow formula as less subtle as possible, which immediately makes it ridiculous and underwhelming. Though, there is still intrigue from its concept, but then again The 5th Wave lacks the novelty that YAs should offer again.
The movie begins with a... *sigh* how can I explain this? Let's just say Chloe Grace Moretz is no different from Shailene Woodley. As the waves go, these teenagers who used to live in their middle class lives are forced to put themselves into survival stakes that questions their morality and some sort. At one part of the story has Cassie Sullivan trying to find his brother after the invasion, while being hunted by these aliens called "The Others." She was wounded and left unconscious in the ground. Meanwhile, her high school crush has joined this military team of younger soldiers to fight these aliens. They battled and find conspiracies. Honestly, the Ben Parish arc is the most interesting. As said, he is this cool high school kid who is now reluctantly made to kill aliens that looked like his own kind. It can be a harsh coming-of- age story that takes one out of his comfort zone. That arc is almost similar to Cassie when she killed a human being, which she assumed one of the Others. Well, she meets a hot guy in the woods, have moments that are supposed to be romantic but their chemistry never sparked.
The science fiction elements is actually interesting at the start, we see how these stages destroy the world. But everything else is just stock alien invasion stuff; military, floating drones, etc. The movie hardly has any novelty or richness in this world. The secondary characters, while you see a lot of them with their silly nicknames, are basically just stock secondary characters. You don't know them as much as the leads do, it's just there. The action is alright, though the effects can look a little shoddy (looks those gunfire.) The acting is also alright, Chloe Grace Moretz has done way better performances than this, this is basically her If I Stay except she is given more time to pant and stuff. As the two male actors; Nick Robinson supports his character's arc quite well. The weakest is Alex Roe who is basically the typical pretty boy who sometimes doesn't feel like he belongs in their plight.
The 5th Wave is ridiculously by-the-numbers as YAs get. And yes, the movie ends with leaving so many question for the sequel (good luck with that.) It's nothing surprising or intriguing anymore, it's just one of those franchises. It would have been better if it offers something interesting beyond the formula, sure, it has some thematic potential, but the clichés get worse as it actively takes over everything. You can write a long shopping list out of what this story has borrowed from other YAs. Even some of the worst young adult films manage to bring more originality than this. It's that frustrating, thus there's nothing special about The 5th Wave. If you've seen a lot of these young adult stuff before, then you won't miss anything from here, whatsoever.
The movie begins with a... *sigh* how can I explain this? Let's just say Chloe Grace Moretz is no different from Shailene Woodley. As the waves go, these teenagers who used to live in their middle class lives are forced to put themselves into survival stakes that questions their morality and some sort. At one part of the story has Cassie Sullivan trying to find his brother after the invasion, while being hunted by these aliens called "The Others." She was wounded and left unconscious in the ground. Meanwhile, her high school crush has joined this military team of younger soldiers to fight these aliens. They battled and find conspiracies. Honestly, the Ben Parish arc is the most interesting. As said, he is this cool high school kid who is now reluctantly made to kill aliens that looked like his own kind. It can be a harsh coming-of- age story that takes one out of his comfort zone. That arc is almost similar to Cassie when she killed a human being, which she assumed one of the Others. Well, she meets a hot guy in the woods, have moments that are supposed to be romantic but their chemistry never sparked.
The science fiction elements is actually interesting at the start, we see how these stages destroy the world. But everything else is just stock alien invasion stuff; military, floating drones, etc. The movie hardly has any novelty or richness in this world. The secondary characters, while you see a lot of them with their silly nicknames, are basically just stock secondary characters. You don't know them as much as the leads do, it's just there. The action is alright, though the effects can look a little shoddy (looks those gunfire.) The acting is also alright, Chloe Grace Moretz has done way better performances than this, this is basically her If I Stay except she is given more time to pant and stuff. As the two male actors; Nick Robinson supports his character's arc quite well. The weakest is Alex Roe who is basically the typical pretty boy who sometimes doesn't feel like he belongs in their plight.
The 5th Wave is ridiculously by-the-numbers as YAs get. And yes, the movie ends with leaving so many question for the sequel (good luck with that.) It's nothing surprising or intriguing anymore, it's just one of those franchises. It would have been better if it offers something interesting beyond the formula, sure, it has some thematic potential, but the clichés get worse as it actively takes over everything. You can write a long shopping list out of what this story has borrowed from other YAs. Even some of the worst young adult films manage to bring more originality than this. It's that frustrating, thus there's nothing special about The 5th Wave. If you've seen a lot of these young adult stuff before, then you won't miss anything from here, whatsoever.