Most of us have barely had our annual new year’s resolution visit to the gym but the first new young adult fiction adaptation of 2016 has already turned up. The race to be the next Twilight/Hunger Games still continues because everyone that tries seems to fall short, and The 5th Wave becomes the next plucky competitor to fall flat on its face in the process. One critic claimed that Rick Yancey’s 2013 source novel, “should do for aliens what Twilight did for vampires”. This film honors that pledge by being a complete embarrassment to all depiction of aliens.
Four waves of attacks by aliens called “The Others” have left humanity devastated. As the 5th wave approaches, the 16-year-old survivor Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz – Kick Ass, The Equalizer) is desperately trying to save her 5-year-old brother Sammy. She encounters a fellow survivor, Evan (Alex Roe – The Cut) but can she trust him?
Now, there are a lot of ideas in play during The 5th Wave, and they feel like they would have worked very well in source novel (I’m not claiming to have read it) for having the time to fully explore them but when merely sprinkled over a film, they turn into an utter mess. One of the biggest ideas is that The Others themselves are not like the Independence Day style intergalactic locusts but just another species trying to survive. That’s great; it provides plenty of deep material to work with. Yet all we get is single exchange along the lines of, “Oh we’re just like you really.... we feel really bad about this mess”. Of course, the potential franchise (yes.... there’s a trilogy of books) might be holding onto its secrets heavily like The Maze Runner films have, but that hasn’t work for them, and this one failed as well. In fact, just like anyone that’s just had a full English with extra beans, The 5th Wave really hurts itself by holding things in for too long. It tries to be clever with several big twists but they all arrive far too late to carry enough significance because we barely get to see the impact they have on the characters or the larger world setting. There’s a reason Palpatine executed Order 66 in the middle of the film: because witnessing its greater ramifications was crucial to the story (that’s right, the prequels are the better example... things are that bad).
The 5th Wave really can’t decide what kind of film it’s trying to be. Its starting premise suggests post-apocalyptic survival movie yet its first act becomes miniature disaster movie via a flashback. However, this is actually the strongest point of the film. It has some merit to it as the more natural disaster themed waves 1 to 3 are played out. It doesn’t quite achieve the dramatic stakes it’s going for but some the effects sequences (especially a tidal wave in Asia) are visually impressive. The sequence of events also creates the interesting idea of trying to wipe out humans while inflicting the minimal damage on the Earth itself. This is a less trodden path within the wilderness of alien invasion movies and 5th Wave gets points for taking it. However, it still manages to derail itself with some painful inconsistencies in its logic. The 3rd wave is a virus attack of super bird flu.... no, seriously, which is supposed to have wiped out the majority of remaining humans. Yet 3 out 4 members of the Sullivan family are miraculously among the small minority immune to it. Then once we return back to the presentm it becomes all too obvious that we’re within the realms of young adult fiction because as soon as boy (Evan) meets girl (Cassie) the film turns into a bad romantic drama with an alien backdrop. A swoonfest whenever vaguely possible: i.e. just having Cassie drool over a sweaty Evan chopping wood isn’t enough.... she has to do it again later when she catches him bathing in a river! The whole issue over trust (aliens can take over human bodies) amounts to very little as the film never successfully creates any disbelief over the young lovers ending up together. This would still be passable if the pair had chemistry.... but they don’t. Moretz is likeable enough but Evan’s character is dull and flat with his late arrival, genre required, sudden twist of character depth executed worse than Illyn Payne trying to cut off Ned Stark with a herring.
Yet worst of all is the parallel child-soldier military story that feels like the unaired pilot Divergent TV series. It boasts all the worst troupes of that film somehow made even worse like training sequence after training sequence (“aliens are invading.... let’s take the kids paintballing”). A bunch of one-dimensional character archetypes like “the young frightened one” just there to scream, “the rebellious badass” just there to stare disapprovingly, “the nice guy leader” just there to move the plot along and of course the token ethnic diversity stereotypes (well it doesn’t want a boycott I suppose). It would at least be tolerable if it built to something meaningful but all we get is a poor action set piece and a twist so obvious that certain characters practically hum the Imperial March when they enter a room.
Chloe Moretz is trying her best here but when the script requires nearly 5 minutes of continuous cryingm the odds were always going to be against her. Particularly through the first half, she does get some good moments and almost always feels better than the material she’s given. Alex Roe on the other hand does not actually deserve a character name and should merely credited as “abs and sexy voice guy”. Those are his only contributions. Nick Robinson (Jurassic World) fairs considerably better as Ben who is at least somewhat likeable and entertaining in the military scenes. Maike Monroe (The Guest, It Follows) is almost unrecognizable as token badass girl Ringer and that’s definitely a good thing because she’s merely a shadow of her normal self. The likes of Liev Schreiber (Spotlight) and Maria Bello (Prime Suspect) are brought in for some class in the adult roles but both used so poorly they take on almost cartoon like personas for most of the film.
The 5th Wave breaks with the promise of being different to its genre rivals only to spend half its run time becoming a bad imitation of them. A sequel has not yet been green-lit and with the film not seeing waves of audience attendance (it looks like it won’t even make back its $38million budget) we may thankfully be saved from further disappointment. The first science fiction film of 2016 becomes an early candidate for its worst. The 5th Wave is certainly a wave of something.
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