The 5th Wave

SPOILER-FREE MOVIE REVIEW

Boy, was this movie a very welcome breath of fresh air.

After many appalling teen dystopian-thriller movies that came from books over the past three years or so (The Hunger Games sequels, Maze Runner movies and Insurgent, just to name a few), this movie promised to be similar.

To my surprise, it wasn't. In fact, I actually kind of liked it.

That's coming from me as well, the guy who has practically given up on this genre of movies after having seen too many crapfests in such a short period of time.

Then again, however, I wouldn't consider The 5th Wave that similar to all those other teen dystopian-thriller movies because it resembled more of a disaster movie.

Anyway, let's get into the movie proper.

The film started off pretty solidly with some interesting opening shots/scenes as well as decent exposition to explain what was going on.

It had a very interesting premise regarding some sort of alien species invading Earth, attacking in multiple waves with different sorts of tactics each time.

It even panned out to make a pretty solid first half of the movie - a half that left me both intrigued and hooked.

Sadly, that was the point where everything just screeched to such an abrupt halt.

The focus and intrigue of the first half just extinguished in a blink of an eye, and what took its place was a poorly-written and messy last 45 minutes.

As with pretty much all of these kinds of movies, there will be some romance going on.

What ruined the movie for me wasn't so much due to the plot turning to shite (it didn't), it was the extremely odd and forced romance that went on so suddenly and abruptly that it just took me out of the movie.

Furthermore, there was absolutely no chemistry between Cassie (Chloë Grace Moretz) and one of the male leads which I shall not identify in order to avoid spoiling it for anyone.

I firmly believe that if they had omitted the whole romance dynamic entirely, I would have enjoyed the film much more.

I'd even say that I would have preferred The 5th Wave (minus stupid romance) to the best of the lot like the first Hunger Games and Divergent.

Performance-wise, the decent cast did a pretty good job with their roles, despite some iffy child acting.

Once again, Chloë Grace Moretz proves that she truly is one of Hollywood's up-and-coming stars with a great performance as the lead character of Cassie Sullivan.

Technically, the movie was alright.

I think that the movie was shot pretty decently as it didn't include much or any shaky cam at all, to my surprise.

Movies like this often employ the use of shaky cam to create excitement and tension, but it never works (to me at least) because all it does is leave me dizzy and confused.

This movie kept the camera steady enough, so well done for that.

The special effects were nothing fantastic, and did look rather plastic at times with some poor CGI. Just a minor issue.

Some bits felt really cheap though, as if some scenes were included just for the sake of making 14-year-old girls squeal in their seats, ogling the male lead in his totally unnecessary topless scenes.

What were they thinking of? Were they trying to make an effort to win one of them silly MTV Movie Awards for Best Shirtless Performance or Best On-Screen Kiss? Ugh.

All in all, The 5th Wave was an enjoyable movie until the romance bits just threw everything off course.

It was carried by another strong performance by Chloë Grace Moretz, and has enough in it to keep you intrigued and possibly craving for more in the sequel.

A movie that promised so much from the get-go but ultimately failed to deliver its full potential.

Still, at least it wasn't Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials.

Here's hoping that the sequel would be better (I highly doubt it).

6/10.