THE 5TH WAVE (2016)

THE 5TH WAVE (2016)

Tagline: Can We Survive The 5th Wave? 

(Sci-fi, Action, Tricky Aliens) [PG-13]

Now, we are like those cockroaches. And the Others are picking us off... One by one. And because the Others look like us, we can't trust anyone.

In this one, freakin aliens start taking over the world via four waves of destruction and dismantling society. The story follows a girl named Cassie whose younger brother has been taken to a military camp for “safety” after the two are separated. While on her way to find her brother, she is shot and taken in by a mysterious man. Meanwhile, the aliens are preparing for the fifth wave. Something no one expected. 

First off let me say that I have picked on Chloe Grace Moretz for her movie choices for quite some time, but this like TOM & JERRY and SHADOW IN THE CLOUD is another diamond in the rough. From what I understand this movie was pretty much universally panned and it’s not looking like there is going to be a second movie in the series which is based on a 3 book teen-centric series. Having never read the books and because I don’t expect movies to ever live up to the books, I don’t ever get disappointed by a movie that doesn’t fit someone else’s idea of how the “movie” should have gone. 

This one starts out a bit slow but the concepts are still there and overall it’s just one crazy event after another. The cast all does an amazing job with this thing. Chloë Grace Moretz crushes it as the movie's main focus and the rest of the cast is also stellar. Alex Roe is almost creepy at times as Evan Walker, and Nick Robinson is solid as Ben Parish. Liev Schreiber is outstanding as Colonel Vosch. I could go on and on.

If anything the only failure for this movie was the fan reaction. Some have pointed out the story being silly and or the science being off or whatever, but wow. This thing is just really cool. Yes, it’s an apocalyptic movie, so the “fun” is hard to come by, but I cared about the characters and was rooting for them and wanted them to figure out what the heck was going on and this plot just delivers in every way. The movie also suffered from coming out in January. January is where movies go to die as far as the box office goes, but even with that said, the movie still made well over double what it cost to make. 

I loved the sets, I loved the soundtrack, and I loved the direction from J Blakeson who admittedly didn’t have a ton of directing experience when this came out. I normally don’t give a crap what other reviewers think about movies, but the verbal vomit coming from about half the reviews I have read seems to be coming from some deep-seated emotional hatred of something far deeper than what we got on screen. It’s almost some sort of weird jealousy thing somewhat pointed at the romance and who the heck knows what else. However, if it’s not that and there are really that many genuine haters of this movie out there, then it is what it is. This is far better than at least 2 of the HUNGER GAMES films and every one of the TWILIGHT movies. 

For me, this is a solid 6 out of 7. I very much enjoyed it and wish we were getting a second installment. It was inspired by the movie THEY LIVE for Pete’s sake.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF COLUMBIA PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

Please check out the link below by clicking on the picture. Because no one should die buttonless.