More Teenage Angst in a Dystopian Landscape
It happened all of the sudden when a strange, humungous spaceship hovered over the USA and the first wave of four attacks happened causing families to become separated and people to fight for survival. It is how Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz) found herself with gun in hand trying to make it to an army base in order to find her little brother who she became separated from. But having learned that the aliens have learned to imitate humans and as such tricking them in to fighting their battles the question is who can she trust?
"The 5th Wave" feels like a cross over between "Red Dawn" and "Independence Day" and as such we have teenagers trying to survive in the World which is quickly becoming unrecognizable due to Aliens planning to invade and destroy. As such whilst we have a storyline which starts with a touch of mystery over motives and where it will eventually go it is quite a cliche ridden narrative. We follow Cassie as she has to to do some quick growing up, deal with loss, conflicted romantic feelings and her determination to find her brother having felt guilty for becoming separated from him. And to be honest none of these elements have any significant depth, there is no scene of true gut wrenching emotion, just cinematic slow motion screaming.
But "The 5th Wave" seems to have its roots in a series of books and as such fits in to a group of movies such as "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent" which are about young people working together to navigate a dystopian World. And on that level it certainly delivers that blend of characters, action and romance which will appeal to a younger generation. In fact it even ends in such a way that a sequel could be made although of course with so many of these book franchises being made all it takes is for another franchises sequel to struggle to put in to question where another movie's sequel will be made.
What this all boils down to is that "The 5th Wave" is nothing new, it takes some familiar ideas and characters, mixes then up and delivers some popcorn entertainment which whilst not terrible is not remarkable in anyway.
