MOVIE DATE: The 5th Wave (PG13), Latest Movies News - The New Paper
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MOVIE DATE: The 5th Wave (PG13)

The only wave you’ll be feeling from this alien invasion retread is one of indifference.

STARRING: Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Alex Roe, Liev Schreiber, Maria Bello

DIRECTOR: J. Blakeson

THE SKINNY: Cassie (Moretz) is your average teenage girl whose world is turned upside down when aliens decide to invade Earth. She’s forced to pick up vital survival skills after four waves of alien attacks destroy most of humanity. Things become worse when her little brother is taken away.

RATING: PG13​

 


MARS - JASON JOHNSON

The best thing about this flick is probably Moretz's hair.

It shines in the sun and flows in the wind when she's running all over the place doing whatever.

Unfortunately, one good head of hair can't carry a whole movie.

The 5th Wave is mediocre at best, yet another adaptation of a young adult novel that fails to live up to its promise.

If Divergent is a step down from The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner a step down from Divergent, then The 5th Wave is a step down from The Maze Runner.

The problem is that it's bland and uninspired.

Visually, there's absolutely nothing distinctive about it.

The alien ships are only ever seen at a distance.

Without giving away too much, the aliens themselves look like us.

The two male leads, Robinson and Roe, are flat and lifeless, forever looking as if they just woke up.

The cinematography barely rises to the level of a Syfy made-for-TV movie.

The story itself is the sort of thing we've seen a hundred times before and the twist at the end is too little too late.

Unlike many other genres - thrillers, rom-coms - science fiction films must be truly distinctive to work properly.

These sorts of movies live or die on the forcefulness of the imaginations behind them.

Unfortunately, The 5th Wave basically lacks vision.

Rating: 2/5


VENUS - JOANNE SOH

Moretz needs to be more selective about her movie projects.

She's an effective young actress, full of talent and with the ability to shoulder a movie on her own.

But if she's going to do more films like The 5th Wave, I'm afraid her career may come to a halt pretty quickly.

That's not to say her work here is bad.

On the contrary, she's the best thing about it.

The 5th Wave just doesn't know what it wants to be. Romance? Survival story? Anti-adult satire?

The story starts out well until somewhere in the middle, it decides to switch gears to become a love story and that's when things become unintentionally hilarious.

Cassie is attracted to her saviour Evan (Roe) and it's not hard to see why.

He's one delicious piece of eye candy and his bathing scene will garner giggles from the females in the audience.

However, most of the action takes place at the army camp where Cassie's brother and other young orphans are being trained to become alien fighters.

The inconsistent switching between Cassie's storyline and what goes on in the camp shows how amateurish a director Blakeson (The Disappearance Of Alice Creed) is.

He can't handle action and he fails in the romance department, too.

The 5th Wave was named one of the best young adult books of 2013 by The New York Times. A pity Blakeson killed all its potential.

Rating: 2/5


THE CONSENSUS: The only wave you’ll be feeling from this alien invasion retread is one of indifference.

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